


Hufflepuff Takes New York!

by BlueMaple



Series: Harry Potter and the Road Not Taken [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bookstores, Bromance, Dragons, F/F, F/M, FAMILY REUNIONS!, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, New York!, Other, Peppermint mochas, Reunions!, Romance, Scavenger Hunts, Shameless Smut, Surprises!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:48:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21797881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMaple/pseuds/BlueMaple
Summary: In Which We Are Made Privy To The Text of A Letter Delivered To Ren Cartwright (Big Harry) on Solstice Night in Brazil, c/o the Magicals of the Society of Jesus. A few minor (minor) spoilers for HFF, but nothing serious. Because OH MY GOD I AM STILL SO MIRED THERE AND I NEED TO PROGRESS SO WE ARE GETTING ON WITH THINGS, and I will make the effort not to give anything really, really big away before I drop that damned chapter. Eventually. ARGH!
Relationships: GET THE HANKIES, Harry Potter/Charlie Weasley, IT'S A BIG FESTIVE ROMANCE-FEST, LOADS OF OTHERS - Relationship, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Scorpius Malfoy & Albus Severus Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Harry Potter and the Road Not Taken [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/481666
Comments: 25
Kudos: 89





	1. An Easy Commerce Of The Old And The New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which We Are Made Privy To The Text of A Letter Delivered To Ren Cartwright (Big Harry) on Solstice Night in Brazil, c/o the Magicals of the Society of Jesus. A few minor (minor) spoilers for HFF, but nothing serious. Because OH MY GOD I AM STILL SO MIRED THERE AND I NEED TO PROGRESS SO WE ARE GETTING ON WITH THINGS, and I will make the effort not to give anything really, really big away before I drop that damned chapter. Eventually. ARGH!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All chapter titles from T.S. Eliot's 'Little Gidding'.

_**Esconderijo do Altissimo** _

**Castelobruxo School, Brazil**

**December 19, 1991**

**Dear Big Harry,**

**I know you’re Ren now, and that’s fine. I’m not Harry anymore either, I’m Flea, from Fleamont. Professora Hernandez says she knew him, and that he was wicked brill, and was famous for the things he did, not the things that happened to him. I like that, so if I have to be a Potter, I’m going to name myself after him and his father Henry, who also did great things and is sort of the same as Harry, but not. Oh, and after Padre Tony, who’s my spiritually-and-psychologically-if-not-legally unofficial dad now. So if you count in the silent brackets, like silent letters in words, it’s Fleamont Henry (Tony) Potter (de Silva). I hope Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin won’t mind that. But just so you know, I’m okay with you calling me Harry, at least in private, because you know what it means and what it doesn’t. I’ll bite anybody else who does it though. And I like calling you Big Harry anyway, because you got out of the cupboard and got big. I’m very proud of you for that. Well done, you!**

**Just so you know, my spelling isn’t really this good. I’m using a magic biro that corrects it for you as you go along. They let you use them here, because otherwise the teachers would go blind and/or nutters, and you need your eyes and sanity here more than most people do in other places. The misspelled words show up in blue on your official papers for school though, so you know to look them up when you get them back and your teachers all know where you need improvement, and can tell if you’re really trying to improve or just taking their self-preserving concessions for granted. Beautiful Jesus really doesn’t like it when you do that. Three strikes there and you’re called up for tea. That’s not a good thing, no matter what they tell you in England. If you’re ever extended the invitation, find a nice way to say no. You’re a grown up, so you can do that.**

**So! Big night! Your first as a World Warder! I’m including some jerky for your pockets, for your tea break. It’s not Frankie’s steak and kidney, but that’s so flaky it would smoosh all over everything else in there, so it’s best not to risk it. He’ll have lots in New York though, at your party, and treacle tart, and rice pud for Big Nev. He’s wicked brill too. Big Nev, I mean. We all saw the pictures of him biting off people’s heads in Wales, and Ace - that’s Little Nev and stands for Alien Clone of (Frankie’s) Exalted (Father) - says he’s pretty sure he got that habit from their Gran, though with her, it’s only a metaphor. He thinks. He doesn’t do that. He says it’s bad manners. Though Padre Tony says that he's pretty sure that he gets a circumstantial dispensation, and got a bit whingy that he missed all the fun. He says Vito would have really enjoyed delivering hugs and kisses from Beautiful Jesus all around. Padre Carriera says he’s a bit much sometimes. Padre Tony says that’s a bit** ~~**fuckin’** ~~ **rich coming from him, and he can’t/shouldn’t** **~~fuckin~~ ’** **talk, and Bishop Silva said speaking of rich, they did both take vows of poverty, so to mind the pointed fingers, and if they didn’t both shut it, he’d put them both under a vow of silence for all eternity so neither he or Beautiful Jesus would have to listen to either of them. Hectorito says that he thinks Beautiful Jesus probably finds it all very entertaining.**

**I should tell you about Hectorito since he’s my best South American friend, next to Ace who’s my best friend everywhere. Ace will tell you about his own best South American friend, Benedito Sales de Rocha dos Santos, and our third mutual best friend, _Senhorita_ Marina Ortiz, when we meet, and not to give anything away, because they’re pretty unique, but we all agree that you really do need to be prepared for Hectorito. You need to be prepared for anything and everything around Hectorito, because it’s a documented truth, not just fact, that Things Just Happen when he’s in the vicinity. Not all bad things, but definitely Things. Anyway. His full name is Hector Ramone Lopez de Garcia, and he’s _Senhora Presidente_ and _Doutor_ Lopez de Garcia’s oldest son. He sings lead treble in the Castelobruxo School Choir, even though he’s not registered there till next September, since he doesn’t turn eleven till this Boxing Day. I sing in it too. Ace won’t let us go out together without supervision because he says that after Sunrise especially, Hectorito has entirely too much faith in Beautiful Jesus to keep us out of trouble, and when I said that that doesn’t really account for me, does it (some maybe, but not all; in my mind, it’s only one of the vectors involved and it’s important to account for all of them), Dito said that it does because I always feel obliged to join him in secular solidarity because we share one brain between us. _Senhorita_ Marina said that she thinks that’s a bit much, and a bit rude, even if it is true. Hectorito and I agreed. Ace just said to shut it and tell it to Beautiful Jesus. _Senhorita_ Marina told him we can’t do both, not with just the one brain between us to be making the decision there, so he’d need to choose. That made Frankie laugh so hard he nearly burnt his pud, so we all shut it because a) we wanted some, and b) Hectorito says burnt pud makes Beautiful Jesus cry. I don’t think anything Frankie makes could make anybody cry, burnt or not, unless it was because there wasn’t enough to go round. Hectorito said that’s not a problem with Beautiful Jesus on the job; case in point: loaves and fishes. Also, magic. Ace said that’s only if we behave. He was a bit shirty with it, really, but I reckon it’s because he’s a bit nervous over seeing his Gran and Uncle Luke and Auntie Niss again, and having to account for Going on Holiday without the proper grand/godparental signatures. I’d be nervous too, if I were him. Don’t tell him I said that, though. I don’t reckon it would help any. **

**Anyway. I know you have to go to work soon, so I’ll talk to you when you get to New York, and you can meet Hectorito and the others, and Scuttle too! Scuttle is my pet rune spider. He was born in Cross World (that’s what we call your homeworld now, but we can’t call it Home World because this is everyone's home now) and accidentally fell through the Gate when we went around. We think he has something to do with all the grown ups getting young again, but we’re not sure. He got young again too, but he didn’t grow his leg back. He only has seven. That’s still seven more than Dito, though; he was born without even the two he was supposed to have. It doesn’t slow him down any, mind; he has a really wicked magic chair. He’s tried magic legs and crutches, but they just don’t agree with him. Everyone who meets him reckons he’s going to be a harpy eagle though, so he can oversee everything that’s going as Ruler of His Domain (it’s why he and Ace get along so well; they’re the same that way) and then he’ll have wings, so the legs won’t matter. Anyway, he’s very friendly, if a bit small. Scuttle, I mean, not Hectorito or Dito. Dito’s even bigger than Ace, if you don’t count the legs, but a lot ruder. That’s the Sales in him from his mum, and the Rocha dos Santos, from his dad. His dad’s the rudest person I’ve ever met in my life, except for his mum. They’re brill. Anyway. We set him (Scuttle) up a habitat in one of my pockets, with an oxygen and lighting charm and plants and dirt and everything, and it’s transparent from the inside like the tower you made for me at Longbottom Manor so he can see out, and he likes it there a lot. I just have to remember not to drop things in on him.**

**Have you figured out a way to reintroduce us at Hogwarts yet? Because if you haven’t, you should get on that. Only I don’t think any shrinking charm is going to account for the fact that I’m half a foot shorter and a stone lighter than your version of me was when you and Big Nev started again there in September, and no _Engorgio_ for the fact that Ace is half a foot taller and a stone heavier, and ** **very** **fit and muscly with it, even if he’s only eleven. Padre Tony says he looks at least fourteen. Even some of the third year girls think he’s cute. Girls are stupid. All the exercise he’s got working the greenhouses with Stella and running the jungle with her on her expeditions (only up high and during the day because of the leths, though now that they’re gone, he’s really excited about the next one they’ve got planned, for all the things that only bloom at night) has been very good for him. And his hair. It’s down to his bum now. He wears it in a braid, and he said he’s not cutting it. Ever. Also, it’s brown. And he speaks with a kind-of-Portuguese accent now. We had to learn it very fast when we got here, and Spanish too, because they took the auto-translation charms off the school wards when all of the ISEP students from Away stopped coming to Castelobruxo in 1973. Oh, and we’re both two-handed now. It only took us six months after we got here. Padre Tony is a great teacher, but Bishop Silva is just** **~~mean~~ ** **strict, and doesn’t cut you any favours just because you’re a kid. Less, even, because he says he wants to see you live to grow up.**

**Our wands are very neat, all four are South American, and are two matched sets, but instead of having one matched set each, we each have one matched wand from each set. One of the sets belonged to the _Senhora Presidente’s_ grandparents, who were lost together when she was at school, and she cried when they matched us and says that makes both of us officially family. Her gran was a Magizoologist, which suits me because I like animals, and her grandfather was a Medicinal Herbologist, which is perfect for Ace because he likes plants. So together, we have it all covered. Oh, and the other used to belong to Professora Hernandez and her twin sister. One of those is good for Charms, and one is good for Transfiguration. Ace is good at Charms, and I’m better at Transfiguration. Professora Hernandez says it’s because I like things like I like them, to the point of making them go my way, and he’s got a more flexible view on life than I do (if it doesn’t involve manners anyway) and loads of charm. She didn’t say I didn’t have any, because she’s polite, and she can’t talk because it was her wand anyway, but that’s alright. It’s good for a man to know the things he needs to improve on. Hectorito’s not got his wand yet but he’s completely brill at making his incidental magic do what he wants it to. Sometimes. Sometimes not. So far he seems to be good at blowing things up. That’s a very useful skill in the jungle, if you can aim it. Also very good for opening coconuts. Best not to stand close up when he does that. It gets a bit messy. Not as messy as when we all went camping/hunting with Padre Tony last summer (winter here) and he blew up one of the Peruvian Viperteeth we were tracking, though. That was so messy it should have its own category, everywhere. Padre Tony was loads neater with his, he just whomped on it. Dragons are dragons, but they have nothing on a ninety foot titanoboa. Yes, I said ninety feet. He may have gone younger when we all crossed, but Vito grew. A lot. It was quite startling, especially when we all realized that his markings changed too. Don’t worry, he’s still got the collar. There’s just a bit more to it now, just like there’s a bit more to him. I reckon you’ll be quite pleased there, and so will Big Nev, but they said I’m definitely not allowed to tell you about _that,_ so you’re just going to wait and see. It’s good though. Very good. He didn’t think so at first, but he came around eventually, and now… Well. Christmas! Surprises! Just a warning, stock up on handkerchiefs. Big Nev just might want to invest in a company that makes them, actually. In the meantime… I’ll load my pockets, if you load yours!**

**Oh! One more thing before I go, and you do too. We were at your duel at Hogwarts. It was _TOTALLY WICKED BRILL._ Al won’t say so, because, Al, but he was very proud of you. Scorpius nearly wee’d himself laughing at the Sarlaac. Also, that was the nicest thing ever what you did for his little mum. He cried. I reckon we all did a bit. I know she’s not his mum here, but you should know. Also, I REALLY like dragons. Do you think Charlie would introduce me to some of the ones here that he knows? He seems very nice. I think we would have lots in common, and I like his freckles too. He looks like he’s been sprayed with stars. Do they go all over? Oh, and it’s very nice of you to agree to consider Solace with the Malfoys. Ace was very happy, he says it means that he doesn’t have to be Draco’s boyfriend when he grows up, like Big Nev was on Cross World. I reckon that’s for the best too, really, THE OBVIOUS ASIDE, WHICH IT IS NOT, as I’m sure he’s very nice, and has probably improved over being a bit of a git since that last time Ace saw him, but no point in risking it. Also, he won’t need it if Astoria is better now. They can meet and get married and have loads of kids if that’s what they want here, and don’t have to worry about their happy-ever-after being prematurely ended at all. **

**_Boa tarde,_ Warder, and Good Solstice! See you in New York!**

**F. H. T. P. d. S. (Fleamont Henry (Tony) Potter (de Silva)**


	2. Step To The Block

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which the Adventure Continues (and the party begins) with Ren and Charlie's long-anticipated return!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All incoming guests for Ren's induction as World Warder on Christmas Eve are based out of the foremost five-star Magical hotel in New York City. Descriptors will follow, but to summarize: at this point in (rl) history (1980s-90s), the Waldorf-Astoria and its associated and attached Magical equivalent were both being completely renovated. Through-traffic through the Nomajic side was, therefore, quite limited and it made it far easier for the Magicals to extend the space for their own purposes on the accelerated schedule. They did, and as a result, the renovations there were finished in 1990. The revamped premises are now known as the Helios.
> 
> It is, quite simply, beyond imagination.
> 
> All chapter titles are, again, from T.S. Eliot's 'Little Gidding'.

**The Honeymoon Suite of the Helios**

**New York City**

**December 23, 1991**

**7 A.M**

“So let me get this straight,” Charlie Weasley-Cartwright said as he sprawled, clad only in a Santa hat and a red satin thong, and applied himself industriously to the triple-tiered platinum and gold tower of breakfast foods rotating obligingly before him. “You’re telling me - you’re actually telling me, and you’re not taking the piss with it either - that the new Captain of the Rio Magico Home Guard - the _de facto_ Head Auror, not just of Brazil, but of South America, Central America _and_ all of the Pacific Islands, a position that for the last five hundred years and due to the ICW’s interference has been strictly titular, but now, is not - is a twelve-year-old boy?”

“Mmhmm.” Seated cross-legged across from him, high above New York City and beside the huge Christmas tree in the Helios’ obscenely luxurious all-windowed rotating honeymoon suite, clad only in a set of novelty reindeer antlers done about with miniature Christmas lights and a thin gold belly chain with a provocatively placed sprig of mistletoe, Ren Weasley-Cartwright layered half of a toasted rye bagel with cream cheese, sprinkled the cream cheese with a double spoonful of capers, and applied a triple serving of lox. He bit luxuriously as he nodded to the photo on top of a stack in the open folder beside him. “That’s him there. Benedito Juan Federico Sales de Rocha dos Santos, only child of Bonita Sales and Pablo Rocha dos Santos - that’s Ramone Carriera’s adopted brother - and get this: officially acknowledged tribesman of Ragnuk the Eighth, Head of Gringotts International and King of the Goblin Nation. And he earned that last on his own. It’s the only way you _can_ earn it, as a human. “

“How the hell did he manage _that?"_ Charlie said blankly. The image in the photo showed a thick-shouldered boy, well above his peers in both height and natural musculature, lounging back in his matte-black, positively vicious-looking wheelchair as if it were a throne. He had brutally short, bristling black hair, a large nose, quite beautiful dark eyes, and a jaw that under the rapidly retreating childhood softness promised, in due course, to serve women - and everyone else - _notice._ Clad in a faded green hoodie over a black t-shirt that bore, in turn, the emblem of the Brazilian national football team, his well-loved khakis were pinned off just above his truncated knees. “At all, never mind at twelve? Also? Don’t talk with your mouth full. 'S completely disgusting, unless I tell you it isn’t.“

“He was ten at the time, and I’m not entirely sure,” Ren admitted, swallowing obligingly first. “Everyone I asked was a bit vague on the details. I know they all know them, but they’re not sharing. Yet, anyway. He’s not the only one of that crew who’s earned it though.“ He set his bagel down and wiped his hands on a napkin, reaching for the stack, shuffling through, and passing off a second photo. This one showed a young girl balanced on a training broom: wary, if not exactly hostile-looking, with edged, scarred eyes. The scars in the case of the eyes were metaphorical. The thick, pale scars on her face, etched as meandering burnt frost from hairline down under her high collar, out from under her clothes and onto her hands and bare feet, were not. She wore full-length patchworked corduroy overalls and a white turtleneck instead of the traditional light shift and, over those, a little pink denim jacket. On her head, firmly tugged down so that not a strand of hair showed, was a soft scarf, done up in patches again, tied off pirate-style and trimmed in exquisite point lace. Charlie could tell that she was wearing a standard wand holster on her right arm, under her long sleeve, but that was not the weapon that would have attracted anyone’s immediate attention. _That_ honour would have been attributed to the glistening, unmistakably goblin-made claw dagger strapped to her left thigh.

“Who’s this, then?” he asked, fascinated. 

“ _Senhorita_ Marina Ortiz, a.k.a. The Sword of Venezuela. Her folks were river warders, they lived just outside of their assigned Nomajic village and she was orphaned when she was three, when a flash flood took out the lower section of the wall wards of their house on Good Friday night, almost eight years ago now. The leths were lurking, as they always were, and got in through the cracks. They were so hungry, especially for Magicals, that they didn’t even care whether the place was lit up like high noon, any more than they did on whether their victims were awake or not. Marina was sleeping in a cot in the only safe room left. When she woke up, and came out to use the washroom, everyone was gone, and the leths turned on her. She didn’t understand what they were, just that they were making her cold, and she wanted them to go away. But they wouldn’t go away and she couldn’t run; she’d had it drummed into her that going without an adult wasn't allowed, so her accidental magic compensated. Place went up like an inferno. Hundred sixty four of them in the house, two hundred twenty two outside, all hoping for leftovers... When the fire died down, they were all dead, and she was sitting in the middle of the ruins covered in their burned corpses. Not a scratch from the hot flame on her, but the cold from the leths had burned her permanently. The alarm had gone off, and the priest coming in took her back to the seminary in Sao Paulo with him. Any number of Magicals have offered to adopt her at one point or another, but she wouldn’t be adopted.”

“Why not?”

“She’d really internalized what her parents, and later the priests, had taught her on Catholicism,” Ren explained. “That the lost were still with them. She was adamant that she still had her family; she just couldn’t see them. She didn’t need or want another. So she lived at the Magical orphanage in Sao Paulo for three years, and moved with everyone else when the orphanage, and the seminary itself, was moved to Esconderijo in ‘86. There was another event, shortly after the one with young Sales, I gather, and again, no one will talk on it. But it definitely had something to do with the goblins, because three days after whatever it was happened, the king went to the courthouse in Esconderijo and put in a petition to adopt her. Not just as his tribeswoman; he wouldn’t have had to consult anyone for that, but per human protocols, as his daughter.”

“Is that even possible? I mean… Legal? For a goblin to adopt a human?"

“It’s not illegal, anyway, because till now, there haven’t been any precedents. She’s a first in the history of the Goblin Nation. And South American laws are a bit different anyway; they don’t worry so much on that sort of thing. The officials at the courthouse and the matron of the orphanage just called her in and asked her what she thought about it, and she said she reckoned that it would be alright. She liked him, she knew him through Frankie and the rest of the family, right, and had met his great grand-daughter, his heir’s daughter, Yaluk. They’re of an age, and got along brilliantly. She said her parents told her it was alright, in a dream. That he was the right one, that they’d chosen for her.”

“So she lives with them now? The goblins?”

“No. She visits them regularly, but she boards with Dito and his parents since a) his father works for Gringotts, b) they’re officially related through the goblins again because of Dito’s own standing there, and c) the Matriarch of the Goblin nation- Ragnuk’s mother - said she’d be best living with other humans while she was in school, so she can learn what she needs to as a wand-wielder. Dito lives at home, not at the school, since he’s in the chair, and requires a full time guard, and the first to third years who live in the village all have the options of being day students anyway. It’s a whole different system there now than it was even five years ago. 

“And the dagger?’

“It has something to do with the events surrounding the adoption. Again. No one’s talking.’

“That’s wild.” Charlie poured himself more coffee and returned his attention to the food on the tray again. “What’s the orange fishy-smelling stuff again?”

“Fish,” Ren said. “Smoked salmon, to be exact. It’s called lox, and upon it, and in tandem with its inevitable and fantastical cohorts Bagels and Cream Cheese, this city were built.” He held out a forkful as he loaded up a second half-bagel. “Here, try.” Charlie accepted the fork, took a single tiny nibble and promptly gagged. Ren shrugged and popped in the remainder. His husband, he was realizing, wasn’t just an uneducated eater, he was a downright picky one. 

“He’s always been like that,” Arthur Weasley had told him over the take-away pastrami sandwiches that Leanna Tovis had recommended Ren from her preferred kosher deli on London Muggleside when he’d complained in her hearing about the tasteless, stodgy food at the Ministry cafeteria. He’d dropped by his new son-in-law’s temporary office the week before Solstice in order to offer up a few choice observations on the subject of Charlie: Care and General Maintenance. “It drove Dora completely spare when they were at school. She’d always try to get him to go out to restaurants when they snuck out to the clubs London Muggleside, but if it didn’t have mashed on the top or chips on the side, or come battered up, he wouldn’t touch it. Don’t take it personally; I know your tastes are likely a little more sophisticated since you’ve lived abroad and all, but there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Ren reassured him, and when Arthur just sighed... “What is it?"

“He’s…” He sat back, looking a bit torn. “Son, can I be honest with you?"

“Sure?’ Ren said, puzzled.

“You’re in for a bit of a tough go,” his new father-in-law informed him directly. “You don’t know him that well, and normally I’d be more worried on him; he’s the nineteen-year-old in this relationship after all… But Charlie… He’s a sweet boy. Sweet as the day is long, no question. But he and Dora broke up for a reason, and it wasn’t because he decided he preferred blokes over birds.”

“Uh?” 

“He’s a wrangler. That means he likes things his way. He can recognize that there are other ways, but his way is always the best way, and that’s not something that sits well with a Metamorphmagus. Never mind that if you give him a free inch he _will_ take the bloody mile, every single time, so you’re going to have to lay down the rules fast and hard for the sake of your own sanity, and yes, your marriage, before you get properly started. And I’m going to lay out the fundamental issue for you right now as your personal wedding gift: your job involves a lot of travel, and my son’s alright with that in theory, but when it comes down to it, and once things have settled… He’s not going to appreciate that you won’t be home for dinner every night.”

“I really don’t think it’ll be a problem, Arthur. We’ve talked about all that, and he says he understands.”

“I’m sure he says he does,” Arthur said. “He probably even thinks he does. But when it comes down to it, you won’t be able to work around any related issues from your end, because the problems won’t _stem_ from your end. His discontent with your _status quo_ won’t be about your age or your talents or awards or your job. It’ll be about the fact that he’s a Prewett through and through, and the Prewetts, to a man and woman, no matter how amiable they are, are hardcore traditionalists. The women stay home and ward and mind the house and kids, and the men wrangle the dragons and bring home the treasure. Molly…” 

He’d paused.

“Molly could have dueled professionally,” he said. “She wasn’t International level, but she could have made a name for herself on the British circuit. She kept her hand in a little after we married, but only because it was wartime, and it was prudent. As for working… You’ve seen the Burrow, it’s a masterpiece of layered charms and architectural spells, and she did it all. She could have studied magical engineering, and worked for the Burgesses making ten times as much as I’ve made on my best day, easy. I would have been happy to stay home with the kids, no matter what anyone said on me for it. But she’s… She was a Prewett, see?"

“The other kids don’t seem like that,” Ren said, uncertain. “At all.’

“That’s because they’re not like that. They’re all like me. Weasleys. There’s a reason Niamh and I are so close; she’s got so much potential, and I didn’t want Molly to…” He struggled. “She was brilliant. But she lost her instinct to go for her wand first.”

“Her instinct wasn’t to attack,” Ren said gently into the small silence that followed _that._ “It was to protect, Arthur. It wasn’t about bringing down the enemy; it was about protecting the girl she thought of as her daughter. “

“That’s the Warder in you talking,” the man before him said bluntly. “You’re a duelist too, never mind a two-hander, so you know exactly what I’m saying. You read the witness accounts; she had the higher ground, and her wand in her hand, and a clear shot. The hall was half clear with everyone porting out. She wouldn’t even have had to cast AK. A stunner would have done the trick just as well.”

Ren said nothing. He had his own half-developed, carefully repressed (for the moment) theory on why Molly had chosen the particular move, though more than likely on the subconscious level - that she’d known exactly what was coming in terms of her sons demanding answers and Ren’s own pointed comments at the hospital, never mind her husband’s probable reaction, and…

He forced himself to stop that line of thinking immediately. As far as he knew, it hadn’t occurred to Charlie and BIll yet - though he knew that it had to Lucius and Narcissa - and he wasn’t about to encourage it.

“The defensive reaction is all very well, but with another war coming… Niamh couldn’t afford to sit at home and learn to cook and clean chicken coops,” Arthur continued. “ The first Weasley girl in how many generations… Pureblooded, beautiful, fertile, hellfire on a broom, and with her way with a wand? Any wand?’

“Uh?’

“It’s the second reason I’m here today. You did notice that she’s only ten, yeah, and nicked Charlie’s wand and cast a perfect bat-bogey on the day she went out for lunch and owl-shopping with the three of you?”

Ren blinked. He’d been so distracted, and still juxtaposing the vision of ten-year-old Niamh with the grown Gin, that that hadn’t processed.

“Bill told me about it. He didn’t smack her head for hexing you,” Arthur said. “He smacked her head for hexing you in public, where people could see her. That’s not the sort of talent we want advertised at this point in time.”

Ren sat back and digested that.

“How long has she been able to do that?" he asked. “And have you got any theories on why? Or how?"

“Yes, actually. Molly was pregnant with twins again with her. Only one of them made it, but we reckoned they’d been identicals. And mirrored, because Niamh’s left-handed; it’s almost always an indication there. So… Mirrored identical twins start with a single magical core, right, that splits rather than doubles when the fertilized egg splits: each half eventually developing into their own, distinct version? We reckon that when Niamh’s twin died, it was really early on. At the point where she could absorb the other twin’s developed core back into her own, and reshape it a bit. She’s not twice as powerful as she could be, but she’s definitely got the extra bit.”

Ren stared, taken aback. “That could only happen - magically - if she was synchronized. If the two halves of the split core hadn’t entirely separated in the first place. You think Niamh had a synchronized twin? And managed to survive her loss?”

“There’s at least one precedent on the books. The current Headmistress of Castelobruxo: Inez Hernandez. Her sister was lost when she was sixteen. And we don’t know that our girls would have been synchronized: their halved core just might not have finished separating yet, and would have, later on the pregnancy. At that point though, there were obviously still some physical and magical connections there, and though the loss didn’t affect her the way it would two fully developed babies or adults, she might yet have left with a little extra as a final gift. We don’t talk about it, obviously, it’s not the kind of thing you speculate on, especially just after the purported end of a war that you know damned well isn’t over. But it’s why we’re so hard on her, and again, why Bill panicked. No one really understands synchronization, and everyone wants to. If it got out that it ran in our family - a family that’s known for having twins… And had manifested in the only girl… There are those who would literally want to take her apart to see how it worked. Who would. After, of course, they’d gotten everything else they could out of her in terms of children who might inherit her tendency.”

“So noted.” Ren collected himself. “When did you have cause to start theorizing there?’

“Most kids start focusing their magic, or being able to, at about eleven,” Arthur explained. “Niamh first cast a spell with a wand - mine - when she was eight. Over the next few months she’d try for a go with everyone who came through, with mixed results - mostly no results - but insofar as those in the immediate family was concerned… Our wands all might as well have been made for her. In terms of developed spells, she’s got a small repertoire now but a useful one. Lumos, Wingardium Leviosa, the Pernicious Wedgie Hex, and the Bat Bogey again. That’s her power spell, though really, she’s just in it for the bats. She’s also pretty good at the basic clean and patch charm. Lots of kittens to bandage up.” He considered. “She can peel apples, for some reason. We’ve never figured that one out. No other fruit or vegetables, no other applicables… She just peels apples.”

"I’ll have to invite her over for tea at some point when I’m making sauce. It’s a favourite of mine." Ren smiled briefly. “My wife's too. Sort of. She would gag on it every time, but she did like the way it makes the house smell.”

“That’s a slippery slope,” Arthur said dryly. “Inviting her over, I mean. Girl's part garden gnome, I swear; let her through the gate once, and you’re never truly safe. She’d be able to detect as soon as you were home and sitting down, and there she’d be through the floo, fighting for lap space with Charlie. Ten to one she’d bring Luna Lovegood with her; the two have been inseparable from the day they first met. Odd little thing, her, and Molly would occasionally get a bit annoyed with her parents because she spent so much time at the Burrow and they never curtailed it, but she was no trouble, really, and their friendship is nothing but a blessing now. Things you never imagined they’d have in common, but… “

“Yeah,” Ren said, and compulsively… “How’s Ron doing?’

“Oh well. Ron.” Arthur Weasley actually laughed a bit at that. “That boy. He’s something else again. I honestly don’t know where he came from; of all my children, he’s just... Sweet. Bit lazy on occasion, but always first in with a kind word off of the kinder thought, yeah? I mean... He’s taking it hard, but we were all sitting together after the funeral, no one knew quite what to say. And he said ‘At least it was quick.’ Perce looked at him, and said ‘what,’ and he said ‘It was quick. She didn’t have to go through what Neville’s parents did. Or what Bill and Charlie did. With the pain. Or what all the people that were eaten by the lethifolds probably went through. That’s something, right? It’s good to know. That it was quick. And she saved Tonks, and Tonks is her parents’ only child. It would have been horrid if they’d lost their only child. We’ve at least got each other. Nev and Harry didn’t have any brothers and sisters when their mums died. I reckon that’s why they’re such good friends now. I didn’t understand when we were all starting at school. I was upset, because they were leaving me out. But I reckon I understand better now. They found each other, and they understood each other, and weren’t alone with it anymore. Not when they were with each other. Harry told me that once. That that’s the most important thing. That you’re not alone. Because bad things happen. You can’t stop them. But when you’re not alone… It’s still bad, but not as bad as it might have been. As if you were alone with it.”

And Ren had had to bury his face in his hands at that, there at his desk. Arthur rubbed his shoulder.

“They’ll be alright,” he said. “They’ve got you as their primary example and role model after all.’

“I might be a bit more fucked up than I appear,” his new son-in-law said, muffled. “Just so you know.”

“Aren’t we all,” Arthur Weasley said wryly. “Just remember what I said. Keep an eye out. I love my son, but he’s a world-class wrangler, _i.e._ control freak, and now he’s got two Horntails aiding and abetting there. As Bill pointed out to him, as long as he’s got something to wrangle besides them, they’re bound to take full advantage of his distraction to try and manipulate _him.”_

 _“Bill_ said that?” Ren said blankly, lifting his head. “To _Charlie?’_

“Yeah. He’s worried.”

“Why?"

“Because they didn’t ask his opinion,” he said bluntly. “Before they moved into his core. They didn’t have to do it, from what I understand. He would have survived nicely with their purely medical contributions. But they decided they weren’t ready to go, and didn’t ask his permission before moving in on him. And, incidentally, you. He’s not got that yet, he’s still processing - or possibly choosing not to look -but those two spiky little shits - that’s Bill’s descriptor again, not mine - don’t seem to have any grasp whatsoever, actual or metaphorical, on the concept of consent.“

“Well, it’s a pretty refined concept for them, yeah?” Ren said, diverted. “It’s down to their magic again, that automatically increases arousal in their mates, and presumably in their shag-partners, in order to increase the possibility of conception. The shag-partners can’t conceive with them, but that probably doesn’t matter to their magic, and wouldn’t give any of them much of a reason to say no.”

“Mm.” It was more than a bit sour. “We’ll leave that there then, though I’m sure you have the intelligence and instincts to see the rather obviously disturbing correlative associations _?_ Anyway, they _will_ aggravate his natural tendencies as it suits them and their priorities. And because they are his natural tendencies… How likely is he to notice?’

“Is that why you’re here?” Ren asked after another moment. “To reassure yourself that I really am aware?’

“Who wards the World-Warder? You’re my son too now, Ren. I take care of my children. Charlie’s my child, but the Horntails aren’t, and my gratitude to them stopped at the point, just like it did with Bill again, when they literally inserted themselves in my child’s body - and yours, and both of the Malfoys’ as well - without his, your, or their consent again.” His long, soft face was hard. “The fact that he loves them doesn’t change that fact. And I’m not blind, or stupid. You take care of the world, and when you come home… You like to have someone take care of you. Just remember who you married, alright? Who you made your vows to, and who you didn’t. And if it starts getting out of hand… Well. I’d advise you to take measures to make sure it doesn’t ever _get_ out of hand, Master-Adept. And don’t just make the point to him. Make the point to _them.”_

“Dash?" Charlie waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Dash. Remind me again what I said the morning we were married on going off on me without due notice?’

“Yeah. Sorry.” Ren jerked back to the present. "Charlie? Have you ever played a game called Twenty Questions?’

“Course. Why do you ask?’

“It’s just… It occurs to me - occurred to me - that we really don’t know each other that well. I mean… We love each other, no question, and we’ve both got a pretty good grip on human nature, though mine tends to be rather situation-specific on the social level -"

Charlie snorted with laughter.

“But we communicated for most of our lives, when we were a part of each other’s lives… By letters. There were loads of them, but letters… By definition, they allow the person you’re writing to only the information that you provide. I’m not very good at talking, but maybe that just makes it more important, yeah? That we get to know each other properly. And discuss things. Potential marriage-issue type things.”

“I think you’re worrying a lot about nothing, little mate. We’ve both got good instincts when it comes to each other, at least. We can just work it out as we go along, yeah?”

“That’s not what you said the night we got married. What happened to ‘what’s past is prologue?’”

“Not really sure what you’re getting at, Dash." His round face was genuinely perplexed, if not remotely, Ren noticed, concerned.

“I wasn’t an IM in Dueling when you passed,” the Warder said. “And before that, you never really saw me duel at all, because I saved it for work. And you didn’t see me duel at Hogwarts last month either. Has it occurred to you, Charlie… _Really_ occurred to you… That I’m not just competing for my Grandmastery in Combat Dueling on the basis that I know a hundred twenty-five years’ worth of spells that my opponents don’t?’

“‘Course it has.” From the flicker of uncertainty in the brown eyes again, quickly quashed, it was meant to be reassuring. “And I can’t wait to see what you’ve got. Everybody says you were absolutely brilliant, yeah?”

“At defensive magic, yes. I’m not expecting to win solely by defensive magic, though. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t intend to just sit in my police box and let my opponents’ spells bounce back at them. Anything goes, but that doesn’t really demonstrate what I can do, does it? And I don’t need all those decades of spell advancements to do it either. I could do it - I could win - can win - with no more in my active repertoire than any of the other contestants have available to them."

“Again. What are you getting at?"

“That you didn’t know that,” Ren said. “It’s a bit of a big thing, yeah? It takes a lot of magical oomph to become an IM, and that’s nothing you ever saw me demonstrate. That nobody thought I had in me. I was always pretty average at school, unless you’re talking on DADA.”

“So how’d you oomph up?"

“I worked it,” he said. “For a hundred twenty-five years. I wasn’t born a Magical on the level of Grindelwald and Riddle and Dumbledore. I went to literal war for every fibre of magical muscle my core has now. War with things - against things- that they couldn’t even begin to imagine. My ability with wards kept me alive. But I still had to get rid of them, yeah? My Animagus form is a reflection of that. There’s a reason you get a bit creeped out when I Change in front of you, and that’s because Karrash and Mola don’t like it when I Change in front of _them._ They’re used to being the big scary ones, and they know - instinctively - that if I wanted to, the Great UnNamed could take them both down with one bite. That’s not one bite each. That’s half a bite. Apiece. “

“Aaaand now they’re back under the sofa again. That wasn’t nice, Dash. At all. What did they ever do to you?”

“They don’t know me either, is all,” the former Harry Potter said. “And they’re not really good at extrapolating. That’s an extension of the ability to interpret metaphors, so I thought I’d spell it out for them. They’re not going anywhere after all, are they?’

“Nope.” Charlie popped in the last of his imported crumpet, and pounced, bearing him back and slithering his way down husband’s bare body, dipping his tongue in the sensitive hollows of his navel and hipbones. “They’re not. Mm. So bloody hot. You smell like me. I smell really good, don’t I? My spiced citric undertones are especially love..." Moving up for the proper kiss, he promptly gagged and pulled back, scrubbing at his tongue. “Euuuuurgh! Go brush your teeth, man! That orange fishy shit doesn’t taste any better in your mouth than mine."

“It's called lox. And I like the taste,” Ren said mildly. “And I’m not ready to scrub it out yet. I’m not finished my breakfast yet, for that matter."

“So eat me. I’m healthy! Fire-roasted, even! Mmm.” He pounced again, or tried to… Ren batted him off and sat up.

“Come on, Charlie. I’m serious here. You’ve asked me to trust you; well, every now and again, you’re going to have to trust me too, alright?”

His husband sighed, propping himself on his elbow.

“I do,” he said. “And I know you’re serious. And I stand by what I said, little mate; communication is important: imperative even, but to a certain extent, we are going to have to figure this out as we go along. This is a new world, with differentiated cultures that I know about and you don’t, and marriage is unexplored territory for both of us besides, yeah? Especially now that Niss and Luke are in there.”

There was a small silence as the implications of his words processed.... Ren pulled back and looked at him. 

“What,” he said. 

“Huh?”

“What do you mean, _huh?”_ And Ren was suddenly on his feet, utterly incensed, so completely and viscerally enraged that he didn’t even notice the tears pouring down his cheeks. “Marriage is not _unexplored territory,_ not for one of us, at least! I was married to Gin for a hundred fifteen _years,_ Charlie Weasley, and I may be bent, but it certainly, certainly _counted!_ I _loved_ her! I still love her! I will always love her, _always!_ I never didn’t love her, or felt she didn’t love me, or that what we had together meant less simply because ninety-nine percent of the time, I’ll look to the bloke over the bird! I didn’t want… I wasn’t miserable all those decades because I didn’t want to _be_ with her, or because I wanted you instead; I was miserable because I wanted _both_ of you, and couldn’t figure out a way that it was _possible! She_ did though! She did, and she made it possible, for both of us, because she loved both of us, and you will never never _never_ say, never even _imply_ again, that she mattered to me less than you do, than _anyone,_ because she moved literal time and worlds and the _multiverse_ to make this possible, to make _us_ possible, to make us _happy_ , and _you will not negate her_! No one will ever, _ever..._ _YOU WILL NOT NEGATE MY WIFE!”_

“Oh, Dash.” Charlie was on his feet, catching him as he crumpled, torn with sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You’re right. I’ve been so busy being happy for us that I’d forgotten that it’s only been a few weeks since you’ve processed that you’ve really lost her. It’s alright. It’s alright, You’re alright, Dash, and you’re right, and I’m just stupid. Shhh, shhh. Here. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. C’mon, little mate. Sit here, sit. I’ve got water here, have a sip, and…” He held him tight, whispering and murmuring. “I love you so much. I love you so much. 'Course you loved her. 'Course you did. She was perfect, yeah? So perfect, just like you. It’s why I never said anything, because you were both just so perfect, yeah? There’s so little perfect in any world, you just don’t want to interfere with it when you find it.”

“No. You don’t. So don’t _ever_ say that again,” Ren said thickly as he calmed enough to accept the glass. “Don’t even _think_ it. She _mattered._ She mattered to _me. Matters_ to me. And I haven’t lost her. She’s still here; Death might have parted us, but we both know that’s a big lie, don’t we? She’s still there, still _here,_ and I _love_ her!”

“Shhh. I won’t. I know.” He hugged him. “I love her too. She was - is- my sister, remember?”

“She was, and in case you’ve forgotten? You haven’t had a chance to meet him yet, but that’s her son down the hall from us now. _Our_ son. Hers and mine. Your _nephew.”_ Ren blew his nose. “He’s a sulky snot-nosed little tosser, but he’s my sulky snot-nosed little tosser.”

Charlie laughed. “So you say. Though I do remember him, and he was such a sweet little bloke. What happened?"

“He was never sweet. He was just quiet while he was plotting on how to make my life miserable on filial principle for all eternity. Slytherin, yeah?"

“Yeah. Billy’s thrilled. Can’t wait to meet him. D’you think they’ll get on?"

“I do, brilliantly; he gets on brilliantly with everyone but me, and I see what you’re doing there. You’re diverting the subject so I won’t be mad at you. Also? Something to remember. Luke and Niss may be destined to be part of our family now, but they are not, and never will be, a part of our _marriage.”_

“Course they’re not. And I wasn’t diverting, I…”

There was a swift, panicked hammering at the door. Ren blinked.

“Who the hell is that at this hour? Everyone we know should still be sicking up or sleeping off the portkeys. Yes?” he called, pointing his wand at the intercom. “Who is it?”

An even more panicked, slightly muffled yet perfectly clear voice answered… The two men looked at each other. Ren pushed himself up and reached for his pajama trousers and dressing gown, removing the reindeer antlers. He opened the door to the suite and surveyed the mass of anxiety-ridden, near-teary individuals before him.

“Yes?” he said politely. “Is there something I can help you all with?”

“We have a bit of an issue, Master-Adept,” the Director of MACUSA's Auror Department said. “And we were hoping to be able to… We were hoping that you’d be willing to help us. In the interests of preventing an international diplomatic incident.’

“It’s…” Ren checked the tempus. “Seven thirty three in the morning, Director…” He checked the name tag. “Grisham. Most of your international visitors haven’t arrived in town yet, and those that have should still by all rights be puking up their guts from the portkeys. What’s the problem? Aside from the fact that you’ve interrupted me on what’s supposed to be my holiday, and actually _is_ my honeymoon, and all before I’ve even had a chance to shower with my husband yet?”

Behind him, Charlie sniggered.

“They are puking up,” Director Grisham said. "As you put it. We anticipated and accounted for that, and as a result, decided to send in squads of local guards to cover the security needs for the contingents from the Lower Americas so that their own imported selection could recover properly before the events tomorrow. And.”

“And?” Ren prompted. The Director braced himself. Visibly.

“The squad assigned to Benedito Sales,” he said. “Was guarding the room where he was just visiting with his friends - Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Miss Marina Ortiz and Hector Lopez de Garcia were there too.”

There was a delicate pause. Ren leaned against the door, arms crossed.

 _“Were_ there?’ he inquired. “Past tense?”

“They are no longer in the suite,” the Director said. “The wards are still solid, and the one door is the only entrance or exit. They’ve all just…” He closed his eyes. “Disappeared.”

The delicate pause deepened.

“Disappeared,” Ren repeated. Behind him, Charlie’s refilled coffee mug paused at his lips. “As in… They’re no longer there? And you have no idea where they are?”

“No. We don’t. All we know, via magical scan of the entire building, is that they’re no longer on the premises.”

“I see. And what do their parents think of this turn of events?”

“They don’t,” the Director said bluntly. “Because we haven’t informed them yet that they’re missing.”

“Coffee?” Charlie offered Ren, bringing the cup over solicitously. “Fortified with extra moral indignation!”

“Thank you, Charlie. I’m fine on that front for the moment. So let me get this straight,” Ren said. “You’re all coming to me now because you’re hoping that I’ll intervene on your behalf with the President of Brazil, the family and security detail of the new, extremely underage _and_ physically disadvantaged Head Auror of the Lower Americas and Pacific Islands, _and_ the King of the Goblin Nation when you go to them to inform them that their children are missing?"

“We knew where they _were!_ ” one of the Aurors protested valiantly. “They were in a secured _suite!_ With only one door! And when we went in to check on them… They were gone!”

“So you’re confirming that you didn’t, in fact, misplace them? That they’ve somehow just managed to wander off of the top floor of the Helios, into the unknown and uncharted depths of the urban jungle while they were shut up behind a closed door, where you couldn’t see them, but yet knew they were conveniently stashed - stashed for _your_ convenience? And they’ve just… “ He flicked his fingers. “Vanished? As if they never existed at all?”

Uneasy looks abounded.

“You know what,” Ren said, uncrossing his arms and straightening. “Alright. Alright. I’ll walk you down, anyway. It’s my job, right? To protect the stupid, helpless and fundamentally screwed? Give me a minute to put some clothes on, and then we’ll do the tour of the bereaved. Who do you think they should inform first, Charlie?”

“Can we… Couldn’t you just… Couldn’t you just… Have a look about first? Maybe at the wards, to see how they might have gotten out? Or how someone else might have gotten in? I’m sure they can’t have got far.”

“No,” Ren Weasley-Cartwright said. “We can’t, and I won’t. I’m going to go dig up my trousers, and in the meantime, all of you, practice this. ‘ _Senhora Presidente_ and _Doutor_ Lopez de Garcia, Your Majesty, and all gathered representatives of those countries that we’ve enslaved, tortured, raped, murdered and effectively cannibalized for the last how many centuries, we regret to inform you, now that it’s all supposed to be over with no actual thanks to us, that your children are lost.’ If you have any sense, any sense at all, I’d suggest you send out separate contingents to track them down before my guests from England arrive. I can’t imagine that the legal guardians of Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter would be that thrilled to realize that you’ve misplaced them. Never mind their guardians here. I understand that my father and stepmother are a bit busy planning for my induction tomorrow night, but I’m sure that my father’s best friend - the one that Harry Potter looks on as another father - would be more than happy to step in, or slither in as the case may be, and fuckin’ whomp on their behalf. With all ninety feet of him. If you’re lucky, he’ll put you out of your misery before Gramps gets here. He’s a bit touchy on the subject of his family members disappearing, and he’s just got my father back, yeah? I imagine he wouldn’t be altogether thrilled if you told him that his cousin- that would be my cousin too incidentally, and the boy whom he agreed, as Magical co-guardian, to take on as his second effective son- was the trade-off there. In fact, I’m altogether, altogether certain that he wouldn’t be able to _bear_ it.”

And he slammed the door in their faces.


	3. See, They Depart, And We Go With Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mitzvahs are legally mandated good deeds, performed by the members of the Jewish community.
> 
> Anthony Goldstein's song is an excerpt from 'L'Chaim', 'To Life', from Fiddler on the Roof.
> 
> Longbottom and Potter have been in NY for ten days now, helping Frankie et al prep for Ren's induction. The SA contingent just arrived the night prior, on the 22nd.
> 
> Hectorito Lopez de Garcia's parents are Carmen Lopez and Tomas Garcia, godfather Ramone Carriera, sister Anna-Luisa Lopez de Garcia (de Carriera).
> 
> Benedito 'Dito' Sales Rocha dos Santos' parents are Bonita Sales and Pablo Rocha dos Santos: grandparents Rosa and Estevan Rocha dos Santos, uncle Ramone Carriera.
> 
> Senhorita Marina Ortiz is the adopted human daughter of Ragnuk the Eighth. She fosters with Dito and his parents. 
> 
> The Catholic Church's liturgical year is divided as follows, and may be identified as such by the colour of the priest's vestments.:
> 
> Ordinary Time (green vestments)  
> Lenten Season (purple vestments)  
> Easter Sunday and Christmas Day (white and gold vestments)  
> Pentecost Sunday, Feast of the Passion of Jesus, Feast of the Martyred Saints (red vestments)  
> Advent (purple vestments)  
> Third Sunday in Advent (Gaudete Sunday) and Fourth Sunday in Lent - (rose vestments, representing anticipated joy)  
> The Marian Feastdays (blue vestments)

**Intercontinental Portkey Division, Ante Room 1C**

**The Department of Magical Transportation**

**Ministry of Magic, London, England** ****

**December 23, 1991**

**1** **P.M-Ish (GMT)**

The series of anterooms off of the Intercontinental Portkey Division at Great Britain’s Ministry of Magic were spartan to say the least. Each had two anchored steel chairs, an anchored steel table, a single small window in the steel door, and more soundproofing wards than any three other sections of the complex put together. Typically reserved for the temporary stowing of, and ensuing official conversations with, travelers of dubious moral intent and/or character, the third in the row of seven was currently hosting a decidedly unusual pair: a sweet, square-faced blonde girl of fifteen, and a tall, broad-shouldered man in navy corduroy trousers, a deep red cardigan jumper over an untucked navy button-down, brown-charmed-blue herbologists’ boots and a red cap snugged over his dark brown, silver streaked hair. The girl, in turn, was clad in denims, a khaki green parka, carefully scuffed Nomajic docker boots done up with yellow and black laces, and a most unhappy, anxious and fatigued expression. She was sitting, not on one of the chairs, but on the floor in the furthest corner of the room from the man that she could manage. ****

“You’re sure it’ll be alright?’ she ventured anxiously as the man stirred a tiny portable cauldron. The cauldron wasn’t set on the table, but in the furthest opposite corner again from her position, over a hovering portable burner. “It won’t Vanish when they empty me out for the portkey jump, will it?” ****

“No, no,” the man reassured her. Back to her, he didn’t turn to look her in the eye, though his voice was eminently solid, deep and reassuring. “It won’t. I’ve added a digestive metabolizer; once you’ve got it down you should start feeling the effects within thirty seconds, and after three minutes, you’ll be all set for the next twenty-four hours.” ****

“I really appreciate this, Headmaster.” Tamsin Applebee huddled even further into her corner. Her own eyes were fixed firmly on her laces. She looked pale and teary, and the lines were etched deeply about her young mouth. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s just… Everybody’s just been feeling so _much_ the last month. It’s been really hard to shut it out. I don’t even have to touch anybody anymore, all I have to do is meet their eyes, and…” She struggled with her tears. “And everybody’s eyes are just saying so _much_ right now, you know?”

“I do know, honey. And we’re going to get you help, I promise.’ ****

“I just don’t understand why the exercises Professor Snape taught me aren’t working anymore! They did at first, and then they just… Stopped!” Her shoulders tightened so hard that Neil Cartwright could practically hear them squeak. ****

“I don’t understand it either, Tam,” he said, still not turning. "But we _are_ going to figure it out. Ren’s bringing in a couple of specialists from South America, and they’re prepping for you right now. And you don’t have to worry on facing the city straight up either. We’re not taking you to Ellis Island. You and I are porting straight to the hotel to your room, and the Mind Healers will be waiting for us there.” ****

“But what if I feel what _they_ feel? With everything that’s been going on down there, my brain would probably explode with it!” ****

“They’re a bit better than that, honey. Trust me, okay? If anyone will be able to help you, they will.” ****

“But what if they _can’t?”_ ****

“Tamsin.” It was gentle, but firm. Still, Neil kept his back to her, though his own knuckles were so white with the effort as he stirred the little cauldron that it seemed they must rupture. “It’s going to be alright, I _promise.”_ ****

Tamsin Applebee wiped her eyes. “It’s just been so _horrid,_ ” she said, and joking weakly… “I don’t suppose you know which NEWTS are necessary to qualify as a hermit these days, do you?” ****

He didn’t laugh, just peered into the portable cauldron again. “Just about ready. Just gotta wait for the green sparks, and… There we go. Perfect.’ ****

“Is it nasty?" she said doubtfully, unfolding her legs and sitting up a bit. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it smells nasty." ****

“Yes, but give it those three minutes and you won’t care.” He ladled out a steaming half-pint into a paper coffee cup, and levitated it over to her without looking at her. “Three big gulps as fast as you can.” ****

Tamsin took it, bracing herself. Neil winced as she hacked and gagged behind him. ****

“Bloody hell, that’s just…” ****

She paused abruptly. Neil waited tensely, counting… And turned about so hastily as she burst into tears that his boots nearly smoked. The look of relief on her face was so intense it was literally painful. He held out his arms; she vaulted up and hurtled into them, crying hysterically in relief. He gathered her up and held her tight, slipping down cross-legged and actually cuddling her in his lap as she clutched at him and wept out her storm of emotion. Finally... ****

“There now.” He wiped her face. “No. No embarrassment allowed. I’d have been bawling all over you too if the situation were reversed, I promise you, so there’s no need. There. That’s better, isn’t it?” ****

 _“_ ‘M not embarrassed. I’m a natural legilimens and I go to boarding school. I’m immune now. _So_ much better.” She sat up as he laughed, still on his knee, and blew into the offered tissue. ”You really think they’ll be able to help me? Because I’ve felt - I feel - like I’m going insane, I swear.” ****

“They’ll be able to figure out what’s going on,” he reassured her again “And we’ll go from there." ****

“What if I need more than the one treatment? We’re only going to be there for a week." ****

“It won’t be a problem. One of them is coming back to Hogwarts with us till the end of the school year." ****

“Huh?"

“Spoilers. We’ll be making the announcement on Christmas Eve.” ****

“Okay.” She struggled up, and watched as he boosted himself to his feet and went to retrieve his coat from the back of one of the chairs. For a moment, she struggled again, not physically, but mentally. Then… ****

“Headmaster.” ****

“Mm?’ ****

“I’m really, really sorry,” Tamsin Applebee said. ****

“For what, honey?" Neil glanced at her inquiringly, smiling. ****

“About Professor McGonagall.” ****

The man before her stilled. The room was very quiet. He looked up from his buttons, watching her. ****

“I won’t tell anybody,” the girl said awkwardly. “I mean… I haven’t. I didn’t look just now, I just… It’s been hard, like I said. All month. For everybody. And I wasn’t going to say anything, but I just thought… It might be easier. If you knew that someone knows. It’s easier. I’ve noticed. One way or the other. If you have someone who knows. You don’t have to say anything either. It’s not appropriate, anyway. I’m just a kid. But you should know. She loved you too.“ Her eyes dropped. “A lot.” ****

Neil fastened his last button and leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ****

“Thank you,” he said. “You were - are - right. It does help.” ****

"Her cat’s settling in,” she ventured as he turned to pack up his things. “The one you gave us? We’ve named him Kenneth.’ ****

“Kenneth?’ ****

“After Kenneth Graham. Mr. Badger? Wind in the Willows?’ ****

“Ah.” He grinned. “Of course. Alright. Ready?’ ****

“I think so. Though I can’t believe we can’t bring our wands. _And_ that they make the kids at Ilvermorny leave their wands at the school, even, over their hols! What kind of paranoid, barbaric, backward country do you come from?"

“One with paranoid, barbaric backward laws,” Neil said sadly. “And that certain extremely alarming percentage of the population with serious impulse control issues. Rebelling against authority is just in our natures. I think it’s actually written into the Constitution. “ ****

“Are _you_ rebellious?” ****

“You _have_ seen the photos of Beorn, right? I’ve had my moments. It’s why I prefer being in positions of authority. I don’t have to be rebellious that way, I can just be a reasonable, rational human being from the start with it, and avoid the problems of disgruntled underlings altogether.” ****

“I’m sure your grandson is very proud of you.” She patted his arm. He sniggered, and glancing around, dug into his pocket. The girl cocked her head as he pinned a shimmering little candy cane on her lapel. “What’s that?’ ****

“Your wand. I nicked it from the pile when you handed it off to me for the collection box. Magic word’s Kris Kringle. ” ****

“Erhm. What?"

Neil hesitated, then sat on one of the chairs. Tamsin, too, reseated herself at his indication. “The potion will help you, immeasurably, but you’ll still be able to sense trouble coming, empathically speaking. And you’re going to be in a student group that… Well. I’m deliberately minimizing the potential trouble there, because there’s one person in particular who’s coming in who may or may not be a target.’ ****

“Who’s that?” ****

“Jax King.’ ****

Tamsin’s eyes widened, and she sat up poker-straight. “What? I thought she was still in quarantine!” ****

“Can you keep a secret?’ ****

“Yeah?"

“Ren’s pulled a bit of a fast one,” the Headmaster explained. “On her behalf, with the help of Gus Richards, the European World Warder. They get their time turners right, during the Solstice? To make sure all the zones line up? They met up at dawn here at the Ministry on the day before Solstice, the nineteenth, before they were scheduled to go to Jakarta, and Gus kept an eye out for stragglers while Ren went to the loo down on the lowest level.. He’d arranged a private warded room behind it. When Ren went in, Jax was waiting there, come in from her safehouse. They spent the next three days together; he did her final surgery, they emerged yesterday afternoon, and he took her back to her safehouse in real time to pack her things before sneaking back and taking the time turner back to the point and place that he did go into the loo at the Ministry, on the nineteenth again. Then he went upstairs, and caught the portkey with Gus to Jakarta, to cover the Solstice. ” ****

“Is that illegal? Or safe? You’re not supposed to use those things to accommodate for more than a few hours!” ****

“Illegal, no. He was licensed to carry a time turner at the time. Jax never actually used it. In terms of being safe… He has a few bio-runic tricks up his sleeve that it’s really not a good idea to abuse, but that he designed for very unusual and special occasions. This was one of them."

“Oh. Well, no of course I’m not going to tell anybody. That’s brilliant! Did it turn out well? The tattoo, I mean?” ****

“I haven’t seen it yet. She wants to surprise us all with it. Ren was quite pleased with the results though, when we talked last night. In any case, she’s good to go, and I don’t anticipate any trouble, not on that side of the pond, and especially not with Professor Flitwick as your team leader. She’ll be sticking pretty close to him, but it’d make me feel a lot better if I knew that there was one other person present with a wand to help take care of things while he’s reducing them all to paste.’ ****

“And if I get caught out by the authorities?” ****

Neil shrugged. “Then tell them where you got it. No one’s going to bother me about arming you. Not after all the photos came out from Wales, never mind that I’m still sitting on the recipe for Kiss-Off. They want it bad, baby, and are still hoping that I’ll eventually prove myself my grandson’s grandfather, and do the benevolent and properly moral thing in donating the recipe for the good of all mankind. To which I say: pfft _._ ” He scoffed. ****

“Mm,” Tamsin agreed. “I’m a Hufflepuff, and even I’m not charitable enough to fall for that one. Our obsession with hard work and fair play demands that we’re offered commensurate compensation for the results of that hard work, Nothing for nothing. Something for something. It’s only fair. Case in point: the Master-Adept isn’t accepting actual money from the ICW for the leths; that would be tacky, but I guarantee - _guarantee_ \- that by the time he goes, they’ll be able to add up the fiscal equivalent of the resulting favours and benefits he raked in for the event over his lifetime, and it’ll come out to the knut.” ****

“I believe he plans to make the point of that this week,” Neil agreed. “Hold onto all of your receipts, if you’re not paying through the credit badges we’ll be handing out, and we’ll make sure you get your money back.” ****

“They won’t argue?’ ****

“Oh, they’ll whine up a storm, I’m sure, on principle - privately - but no. They won’t argue. They’re well, well aware of what they’ve done, and as it stands… They really don’t want people processing that the ICW probably evolved as an entity near-solely as a response to the lethifold problem. That the founders established the institution - the world Wizarding government - as a means of having a way to keep the Lower Americas and Pacific Islands under their thumbs. That hasn’t processed on the public eye yet. It’s about to. And when it does… Well. Ren will, once again, will be all that stands between them and the end of the world.’ ****

“So him rejecting the money wasn’t about it being tacky at all."

“No. It wasn’t. He was telling them he can’t be bought. This week though… He’s making the extremely pointed point that that doesn’t mean that they don’t have to pay.” ****

“Wow,” Tamsin said, and then, and perhaps a little over casually… “So. I’ve heard that you’re planning to adopt her. Jax, I mean. Permanently, not just fostering her?” ****

“Yes. I am. The paperwork is being expedited right now. Don’t tell her, but the decree will be in her stocking on Christmas morning.’ ****

“So you have your son back, and a new daughter.” ****

“I do. Do you know, every now and then, I get this untoward inkling that God is good? No, that he’s bloody brilliant.’ ****

“Mm,” Tamsin said again, and even more casually… “D’you reckon you’ll have any rules on her dating?’ ****

Neil looked down at her at that, genuinely surprised. Her cheeks tinged a bit as she examined her laces intently. He waited. After a moment, she snuck a peek up at him. He quirked his mouth at her in a crooked little smile. She promptly turned purple. ****

“I’ve never parented a girl before,” was all he said. “I’m sure we’ll sit down over a white chocolate marmalade frog or two in the not-too-distant future, though, and she’ll give me the list on what she expects of me there.” ****

“Kay,” Tamsin mumbled. “Only. You know. It might be a long talk. Loads of people like her. You’ll just... Want to be careful. On the people who’ll want to date her. Not everybody’s nice, you know? I _know.”_ ****

“I will keep that in mind,” he said, and opened the door for her. The blast of noise from the gathered, milling crowd was, quite simply, deafening. Tamsin squeaked, and clapped her hands over her ears automatically, shrinking back, then, after a moment, opened one eye cautiously, then the next. She nearly jumped out of her skin as a whooping vision appeared suddenly before her, clad in a scarlet, white-trimmed stocking cap, scarlet leggings, a green tunic belted about with tinsel, and pointy-toed combat boots done about with bells. A sprig of mistletoe was tucked behind its ear. ****

“Tamsin! All _sett,_ my sweet?” Jessamyn Rhodes’ voice was husky, seductive and quintessentially merry, and she didn’t wait for an answer, just turned back and bellowed “All together now! On three. One… Two… START SPREADING THE NEWS… I’M LEAVIN’ TODAY… I’M GONNA BE A PART OF IT…” ****

“NEW YORK, NEW YORRRRRRRK!” the hordes bellowed back loudly and enthusiastically. ****

“THESE VAGABOND SHOES… ARE LONGING TO STRAY… RIGHT THROUGH THE VERY HEART OF IT…” ****

“NEW YORK, NEW YOOOOOOOOORK!” ****

“I have to ask.” Neil craned his neck as she shimmied away. “Is she always like this? I mean, obviously she is, but… Has she always been?” ****

‘Mm,” Tamsin said. “Wait for it…” ****

"IF I CAN MAKE IT THERE, I CAN MAKE IT AAAAANYWHEEERE.. _._ OW!” Jessamyn rubbed her arm, injured. “What was that for?” ****

“You know perfectly well what it was for, you great foul-mouthed cow,” a harried Rhonda Fawley snapped as she herded her clustered charges into line. “Can you not leave off jingling your damn bells for three _minutes?_ There are _parents_ present! Parents who are entrusting you with their _children!_ Their young, _impressionable_ children!” ****

“Not so very, really.” A rosy-cheeked, elaborately ringleted third year, clad in a floofy, bulbous pink parka and a floral-patterned Laura Ashley dress over fuschia platformed Mary Janes (or the magicked equivalent; Minister Malfoy’s latest book list had included the names of several American fashion magazines), hefted her case up on the table and handed off her inventory list to the harassed clerk. “Carpenter, Emily: Abington-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. There.” She pointed to her name on the list. “On the impressionable, that is. All of us who’ve been here during Rhodes’ years again are pretty much immune to innuendo by Hallowe’en of our first years. Never mind Zacharias Smith. Even the Master-Adept would have a problem warding his gob against _his_ sense of the inappropriate.” ****

“Aaaand we’ll stop right there,” Tamsin said prudently as Zach Smith, reloading his carry-on one table over, lifted his lip at her. “Professor Lupin! Happy Christmas!” ****

“And to you, Miss Applebee!” Remus hailed. “As you were, Miss Rhodes.”

“IT’S UP TO YOU, NEW YORK, NEW YORRRRRRRK!” Jessamyn shook her bells seductively at him. He chuckled, and tweaked her tinsel. ****

“Not my preferred theme song, but…” ****

“You have a theme song?” She perked. “Really?” ****

“I do. ‘I don’t drink coffee, I take tea, my dear… I like my toast done on one side… You can hear it in my accent when I talk... I’m an Englishman in New York…” ****

“Accent’s more Welsh than English,” Sirius observed, appearing suddenly. “GROUP SIX, OVER HERE!” ****

“Did you even bother packing clothes?” a tall, brown-haired man in dark slacks, white shirt and traditional fringes and yarmulke was saying in exasperation to his daughter as she handed off the inventory of her huge duffle. “There’s nothing in here but binders!” ****

“I’m a Magical, Abba. I can transfigure the one outfit I’m wearing to whatever I need.” ****

“ _Whatever_ you need? Pants? Socks? Nightie? Dress robes, for that rather important and sartorially extravagant event tomorrow night, which is the entire reason we’re going in the _first_ place?” ****

“Transfiguration! Cleaning charms! There are three weeks to the Invitationals. I need the room for my _notes!”_ ****

“Can’t you shrink them? Never mind that he’s going to be a bit busy, yeah? Do you think he’ll really have the time to study?” ****

“He will _make_ the time, if he knows what’s good for him. THREE _WEEKS,_ Abba! GLOBAL. _INVITATIONALS!_ Inconsiderate _WEREWOLVES_ cutting into my _TRAINING_ schedule! Never mind the ever-so-spurious temp job for the Ministry, during a time of national crisis no less; only that was bound to take up all the extra time wasn’t it, and what was he thinking _there,_ I ask you? He’s a Warder! He’s got no business moonlighting as an Auror, it’s completely vocationally contraindicated! Also, I have all my Hanukkah money. I can buy pants and socks there. We’re staying at the bloody Helios, if I asked them, they’d probably deliver.” ****

“WE’RE LEAVING TODAY…" ****

“AHHHHHHHHHH! _BILL!_ BILLBILLBILLBILL _BILL!”_ ****

The incoming Bill Weasley oofed as Niamh Weasley vaulted into his arms. Percy caught them both deftly. ****

“Take it easy on him,” he scolded. Niamh just clung rhapsodically. Her eldest brother looked both alarmed and resigned, patting her back gingerly. ****

“Hey, Perce. Hullo, Niamh,” he said. “I missed you too.” ****

“Are you better?” Niamh demanded as she pulled back. “Are you out of St. Dymphna's for good? Wait, you have your satchel; are you coming to New York after all, then? I thought the mind healers said you weren’t well enough?’ ****

“I’m not, really, but they decided that sending me off to help spend all of the ICW’s money would be good therapy, and all gave me lists to facilitate their own therapy by proxy. What _are_ you _wearing,_ girl?” ****

“Robes?” She looked down. “What? They’re clean.” ****

“You look like a witch.” ****

“I am a witch.” ****

“And you’re going to America,” her curse-breaker of a brother said. “They have laws about making the point of the fact there. Here.’ He hauled out his wand, the crosspiece snapping into place. Seconds later, she was clad in the latest Nomajic styles: patterned tights, a little dark green babydoll dress, and combat boots similar to Jessamyn’s, but without the bells. A little black leather jacket completed the look, and a dark green scarf…Bill eyed her critically, and tapped her head. Her long straggly red hair spun and swirled, in two high perky pigtails on the sides of her head done up with the latest style of butterfly clips. ****

“That looks dumb,” his sister pronounced, peering into the mirror he provided her, and perked. “Can I get a haircut while we’re there? Short? Really short?” ****

“No. You can’t.” ****

“Why not?” ****

“Because I’m mean.” ****

“That’s dumb. It’s just hair. Can’t we even glamour it, to see what it looks like before you say no?” ****

“No.” ****

 _“Daaaaaaad!”_ ****

“Good _Lord,_ girl!” Arthur Weasley winced as he approached to kiss his eldest son. “Would you like some cheese with that whine?’ ****

“No, but I’d like a fringe with my whinge. Pleeeeeeeeese?” ****

“A _plane?’"_ Marcus Flint was repeating. “Jax is taking a _plane?_ Why would she take a plane? She’s a Magical!"

“Probably because it’s illegal to take an intercontinental portkey while under the influence of polyjuice.” Terence Higgs tucked his inventory receipt in his jacket pocket. “And she’s now perpetually under the influence? She’ll probably be able to get an ongoing exception made for medical reasons, but it is really short notice. And her treatment’s not finished besides, remember, she still has the final layer to go, so even if she is well enough to come out of quarantine, they didn’t want to risk it. I’m guessing since Longbottom’s gran was flying over anyway, they just thought it would be easier.” ****

“Why would _she_ fly over?” ****

“Because she’s bringing Captain and Mrs. Longbottom with her,” Ron Weasley said from behind him. “Here, Hermione, let me get that for you. Their conditions and the damage to their cores make long-distance portkeys an iffy proposition; they’re almost guaranteed to be set off on every level there is, and this way, they can just sleep through the flight. Wait, why is this one empty?” ****

“It’s for books,” Hermione explained, and at his look... “What? It’s New York! There are bookshops on every corner! And they’re all free! Effectively, anyway. The ICW took advantage of everyone for how many centuries, and now we’re taking advantage right back.” ****

“We weren’t actually the ones that got taken advantage of, you know?” ****

“I’m spending in solidarity,” she said loftily. “And they deprived us of knowledge didn’t they? It’s not just books, it’s an exercise in punitive irony. They should just be grateful they’re not hosting all of Ravenclaw; they might as well just wrap up Barnes and Noble’s and send it on over if they were.”

“Why would she bring Longbottom’s parents?” Flint persisted from his position in the next line. ****

“Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas is a time for family, and this event is celebrating one of their family, and they should be there,” Jessamyn said. “Here, put these on, all of you.” ****

“It’s an extendable thermal deli bag,” Anthony Goldstein was saying to the customs clerk. “With the stasis charm built in. I don’t know if you’re aware of the lack of quality kosher deli products in these parts, but my relatives certainly are. They gave me a list. And the bag. And a map of the best kosher establishments in the five boroughs, based on their proximity to scheduled sites we’re visiting. And instructions to run up the bills, and the receipt for the bag too. As a traveling expense. It’s right here, see? Thank you.” He took a button Jessamyn was offering him, examining it. It was black, trimmed in yellow, with a sleeping badger on the front. “What’s this?"

“Student issue credit badger. Badge- R? R for Ren? Fifty galleons spending money a day, good for any Magical establishment in New York, and there are Nomaj-Magical exchange booths down the lobby of the Helios. If you need Nomajic cash, just go there, and the tellers are authorized to spot you another thirty galleons a day on exchange. That’s about a hundred fifty pounds, or three hundred American dollars, for the record. Anything you spend on top of that out of pocket or on behalf of friends and relatives in terms of gifts or on request, bring the receipts back to me, and the Master-Adept will claim it personally, in order to get your money back. I’d say don’t take advantage, but as I fully intend to, it would be rampantly, rampantly hypocritical of me.” ****

“We can’t wear these!” Hermione protested. “We’re Gryffindors! And Slytherins, and Anthony and Leanna are Ravenclaws!”

“Not for the next seven days you’re not,” Jessamyn said cheerfully. “For the next seven days, you’re all honorary Hufflepuffs.” Hermione squawked indignantly as her scarf turned black and gold. “Where’s... Ah. Dr. Granger. Dr. Granger. Mr. and Mrs. Tovis! Welcome to the party!”

“Thank you, Miss Rhodes,” Hermione’s mother, Shannon Granger, said as she looked around. “This is quite something. You’re absolutely certain that the Master-Adept won’t mind us as last minute additions to the list?”

“Not at all. The more the merrier, if you’re not the ones signing of on the associated expense account anyway. Don’t be shy there, by the way. The ICW’s paying for everything coming in on his reservation, all week long, and the student issue has the technical limit, as I just explained, but the adult version is bottomless.”

“You’re bloody serious?” Hugh Granger said incredulously. 

“Yup. Just use the card for Magical things, and just tell the tellers how much you need at the exchange counter, and they’ll pass it on over. Mr. and Mrs. Tovis, Anthony, Leanna… The credit badgers will do you for the incidentals but in terms of food…” Rhonda Fawley handed them each a gold and black card, taped to an envelope. “Cite the number there when you’re ordering room service at the hotel, or in any of the Magical establishments and restaurants on this list again, and the equivalent, guaranteed kosher dishes will be served up, just like magic!”

“You don’t say.” Akiva Tovis - he, like the Grangers, was a Nomaj, though his wife Miryam, like his daughter, was Magical - examined his, interested. “How does that work? Magic aside?”

“There are a couple of businesses run out of Williamsburg that specialize in moment-by-moment, dish-by-dish floo-catering,” Rhonda explained. “The chefs and shopkeepers send the orders through the back kitchen floo and ten minutes later you’re _l’chaiming_ it up in dictated five-star culinary style.” 

“Huh.” Leanna looked pleased. “Wicked!” The Headmaster came up behind her. Whoops of cheers and greetings arose; Jessamyn jingled at him seductively. He laughed and put an arm around her, squeezing her shoulders lightly and affectionately. She swooned and pursed her lips at him; he tweaked her nose and tugged her stocking cap over her eyes. 

“Now, now,” he said. “Santa may yet deliver to New York, but he’s still got a few hours left before he’s set to take off, and that naughty list is still updating. I wouldn’t want to have to send in any last minute reports, mm? Also? The word you are looking for, Miss Tovis, is awesome. ‘Wicked’ is for Brits and Bostonians, and again, we’re headed to New York. Cultural accommodation. It’s a thing.’

“Awesome,” Jessamyn repeated as she pushed her cap back up, not noticeably deterred. Then brightly.... ‘What, no fuckin’ with that?”

“MISS _RHODES!”_ Snape roared from across the hall. Neil just laughed again.

“This is unbelievable,’ Sirius said to Remus in an undertone, turning the pages on a discreetly elegant, gold-dusted -and gilt-edged parchment brochure extracted from his personally tailored information packet as they waited for their own inventory receipts. “Do you have any idea how much even the smallest standard room at the Helios costs?”

“No.” Remus took the brochure firmly from his hands. “Because there are no prices listed for our assigned suite, which not only infers that we are of the order of elites to whom such things are - not should be, but are - irrelevant, but that we would, by virtue of our related upbringing, know instinctively that it extraordinarily tacky to inquire. Let’s not disillusion anyone, shall we? As for how he managed it… I’m guessing blatant mismanagement of his Solstice time turner.’

“Uh?”

“He’s booked a full third of the most expensive five star Magical hotel in New York City, Siri, during the height of the Christmas season. There’s no way even he’d be able to pull that off on such short notice, never mind, when you’re talking the contingent from the Lower Americas that he invited, when was it again… Yesterday? He’d have had to go back a full three years at least, to get the reservations in.”

“Either that, or pay off the hotel owners to cite last minute plumbing issues and reroute all their guests to other hotels,” Lily said to them, passing. “At twice the going room-rate, for the hotel’s trouble plus the regular rates for the incoming _and_ a full refund to the displaced customers.”

“You’re saying he’s paying four times for each room?” Sirius said incredulously.

“No. The ICW is paying four times for each room.” She smirked at him. “Plus the costs of the rooms at the other hotels. _And_ complimentary theatre tickets to the shows of the inconvenienced’s choice.”

“How many rooms has he booked?”

“Seven hundred fifty three.”

_“What?”_

“The post-Solstice celebratory lunch at Castelobruxo went well. He passed out a sheet and told everyone there who wanted to come to put their names down. They did, he called me and Sev, and we made the arrangements.’

“Really?” Sirius said. “Ren called _you?_ And asked you for a favour? Voluntarily?” He caught her glare, and held up his hands in hasty surrender. “No, no. I’m happy for you, really. Both of you. All of you. Really?” She ignored him, and made her way off toward Snape. “Huh. What do you suppose that was about?”

“She’s leaving Hogwarts after the Invitationals,” Remus said dryly. “He likely figures he can afford to be magnanimous."

“Petty,” his fiance agreed. “But sadly true.” 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a deep, booming voice said via _Sonorus._ “It’s my very great pleasure to welcome each and every one of you to this first, if regretfully probably unpleasant, event marking the celebration, not just of the season, but of my grandson’s truly spectacular accomplishments. That being said, you’ll all be delighted to know that he made it through the Solstice in predictably overachieving style, and is even now waiting at the Helios to welcome us to the party.” ****

Mighty cheers rose. ****

“Before we set out,” Neil continued. “I’d like to remind you to keep several things in mind. None of which -and I’m sure you’ve all memorized them quite thoroughly out of sheer pragmatic self-preservation - are the rules on Professor Lupin’s quite comprehensive list. The first is this. This is a celebration - but not everyone present is going to be celebrating.” His voice turned serious. “A great number of your fellow guests are from the Lower Americas and the Pacific Islands, and are in deep shock and mourning. In coming to New York, to MACUSA, on my grandson’s invitation, they are for the first time facing down those who made their lives, and those of their countrymen, for centuries on end, a living hell of the kind we cannot even begin to imagine. A hell that we are privileged - and at their expense - not to have _had_ to imagine. They are angry. They are grieving. And the words ‘we didn’t know’ will not help. They know that. Trust me. They _know_ that." ****

There was silence. ****

“No apology,” the Headmaster said. “Will ever, ever be enough. You’re asking me ‘what do we say, then’. To that… I say this. “We will remember.” No qualifiers, no rationales, no excuses. “We will remember,’ and ‘we won’t let it happen again.’ None of it will erase the fact, the truth that it did happen. Above all of this… I say to you, this. Do not pretend it isn’t happening. Do not turn your back. Do not pretend you do not see them. They are _there._ They _matter._ Their pain matters. Saying nothing at all… In this instance, no matter what you’ve been taught… In this instance, saying nothing at all is absolutely the worst thing you could do. You’re going to have to put aside your British reserve, and look them in the eyes, and say ‘We see you. We can’t change any of it. But we will remember, and we won’t let it happen again.” And if they turn their backs and walk away from you… Remember this. They have earned that right and privilege, and none of us, _none_ of us, have the right, and hopefully, won’t have the temerity - to expect anything else. As we knew nothing, as we did nothing… We’re owed nothing. Most definitely, _definitely,_ not their courtesy.’ ****

His eyes went around, level and calm. ****

“So,” he said. “Short version. If they’re rude to you… Suck it up. If they’re angry, or say cruel things, or from your point of view, say provoking and unwarranted things… Suck it up. Unless, and I mean this, you are in direct physical danger… You _will_ suck it up. Hogwarts doesn’t have the most fantastic of reputations, scholastically speaking. You’re all going to hear about it, I promise you that. There will be representatives from all of the major schools present, and you’re about to realize just how little they think of us. What they will realize is this. Is that however crippled we are there, and that’s about to change, incidentally… We are more than our academic records. And in those things, I expect each and every one of you demonstrate what it is to be at the top of the class. I expect every single one of you to demonstrate what my grandson has dedicated his life to modeling. What it is to be a Hufflepuff. And before you who wear other colours protest…” He held up a hand. “I’m not putting you down. Every child of Hogwarts is a child of all four houses. Sometimes though… You’ll be expected to work harder to display the certain defining characteristics more than others. The badges you’re all wearing for the next week will remind you of that. That the one war has ended, but the real war has just begun, and though, certainly, cunning, creativity and courage will have their place as weapons… The real weapons, the only ones that can truly bring victory for both sides, and peace, are those that make every one of us a Warder in the end - kindness, humility, hard work, and the steadfast, persistent heart.’ ****

No one said a word. ****

“I know what you’re all thinking. That they’re not the only ones who are grieving. I know you miss her,” he said quietly. “I miss her too. Just… Do her proud, alright? Transfiguration is one of the very few subjects that Hogwarts has maintained to global standard over the decades, and that _is_ down to her. Show them all that. Be the proof of that. Show them all how she taught you to dare to change the world around you. To dare to change it by changing yourselves into what she always saw in you. Into what she wanted - and expected - you to be. You all know what that was. Cunning, courageous, creative _and_ kind, starting with the quality that she, like me, would expect you to showcase in the next week.” ****

More than one of the students wiped their eyes surreptitiously. Neil smiled at them all, red wool cap tugged over his dark, silvering hair, hands in the pockets of his hooded navy duffle. He wore, amusingly, blue boots and a brown leather-strapped satchel over his broad shoulder. There was no luggage label and his ears were decorously retracted, but there was a sticker labeled in elegant calligraphic: ‘I BREAK FOR TOAST AND MARMALADE’. ****

“I’m glad you’re all here,” he said simply. “That you’re coming to celebrate with us. And I don’t want you - _any_ of you - to feel guilty over having a good time. Because that - _this_ \- is what life is about, you know? What it _is._ Dancing on the dueling floor. If you can remember that, if you can keep that in mind, not just this week, but as well as you can, all of your own lives… Well. It’s the best way to manage it all, really. You reach the end, or what you think is the end, and you just… Keep dancing till the music catches up with you. And yes, it can take a bit of work to keep your feet under you while you’re waiting, but that’s what your partners are there for in those moments, new and old. To hold you up, while you’re all waiting, as you hold _them_ up, in the places and moments between here and there and now and then, while we all wait together for the music to catch up with us and for the dance to go on.’ ****

In the silence that followed his words, the distinctive sound of sleigh bells sounded. ****

“Right then." Remus Lupin snapped to attention and counted heads briskly. "We've got our maps, we've got our partners, we've got our emergency subway tokens and cab-fares, and most importantly, we've all got our auto-refilling, unspillable mugs with our festive peppermint cocoa, extra-long-lasting whip. Do we all have our extra stash of manners to stow with liberal good cheer in our wake as we go?"

"Yes, Professor Lupin," the neat orderly lines of students chorused. “Though I don’t really see the point of the peppermint cocoa,” Roman Alcott added. “It’s nice and all, but they’re just going to Vanish it all out of us before we go through the portals anyway. It seems a bit of a waste.’

"Chocolate is never a waste, Mr. Alcott, unless you miss the chance to ingest it. Also, having the contents of your stomach Vanished when you’ve not got anything to Vanish is unpleasant, to say the least, so... Drink up. Only half though. Save the rest for when you’re landing, to ease the injury after you sick up. Try for the buckets.” He tucked his list away, and braced himself as the clerk inside the office approached to unlock the doors. "Ready, Siri?"

"Are you kidding?" Sirius said with relish. "My first time off the continent, to New York _City_ no less, my wedding’s eight days away, and the ICW was stupid enough to hand me, as a supervising professor, an unlimited expense card for emergencies and tell me they trusted my good _sense?_ After nine years in Azkaban on the local branch’s knut, and with the biggest feral gourmet chocoholic on the planet, and _Dona_ Alina’s in America right _there?_ Never mind the week-long party; I am ready to spend some _sirius_ money. Who's with me?"

"Are you going to be spending it on us?" Zach Smith wanted to know as everyone cheered wildly.

"That would depend on you, wouldn't it?" Sirius said. "I don't believe in rewarding pillocks for pillocking pillocky behaviour."

"Positive reinforcement," he said. "It's a thing." His History professor offered him an odd look.

"What do you know about positive reinforcement?"

"Not a lot," Smith said dourly. "I live with a lot of pillocks." Emily Carpenter lifted her lip at him and raised her fist threateningly. "See? I just looked at her and she's threatening to hit me again!"

"SEVERUS!" Remus called. Snape craned his neck. "Who've you got to trade off for Miss Carpenter?"

"What? What did I do?" she protested.

"You may have Goldstein," Snape said. "Come along, Miss Carpenter." Emily bolted obligingly. Smith jammed his hands in his pockets and scowled belligerently as Goldstein thumped up.

"Why are you here, anyway?" the young Ravenclaw asked as Remus shuffled partners a bit and deposited him firmly beside Smith.

"Because I was invited," he snapped. "Why are you here?"

"Tam Applebee asked if I could come along. We’re second cousins, but we've always got on really well, and since Hanukkah came early this year, there’s no celebratory conflict. And I wasn't being nasty. I was just asking. I know your family makes a big deal out of the holidays."

"This is a bigger one," Smith said shortly. "They get that."

"And..."

"And what?"

"C'mon. There's a reason. I know. The obvious aside. There’s got to be something offering you incentive to put up with Carpenter for the hols, never mind the school year."

"Shut it, Goldstein."

"Mm." Goldstein fished into his bag and hauled out stack of cards done up with a rubber elastic. "I'll give you your choice of these if you tell me."

"What..." Smith’s eyes widened. He grabbed. "They've put them out already?"

"What’ve you got there, Anthony?" Cedric Diggory asked, craning his neck.

"Special Edition 1992 Global Invitationals chocolate frog cards collection.” 

_“What?_ Those aren’t due out till New Year’s Day! And how did you get the whole set, without having to go through all the frogs first?” 

"It's the season of miracles,” Goldstein said piously. "Regardless of denomination. Didn’t I just tell you that Hannukah came early this year? December first, to be precise.’

“You’ve been sitting on these for over three _weeks?”_

“No. Hanukkah was early. My source had to wait till last night."

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme.” Smith grabbed, and began to sort. “Blah blah blah… There we go. Master-Adept Lawrence Domitian Weasley-Cartwright, IM DADA, IM Combat Dueling, IM (Adept) Warding, Runic and Spell-Cast. The only recipient of a triple International Mastery in Wizarding History. Most renowned, as of the date of the issue of this card, for his..." He flipped through the stack, his mouth dropping. "Applebee! Hey, Applebee!"

"Yeah?" Tamsin craned her neck from Flitwick’s line.

"You've got a chocolate frog card! Higgs too!"

"WHAT?" She bolted over, Higgs on her heels. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Isn't that lovely," Higgs said, snatching. "Where'd you get these, Goldstein?"

“I swore I’d never tell. Well, Smith?"

“You’re just giving me one? These are first editions! Early first editions! Do you know how much they’re worth?”

“A lot, which is why I’m bringing them with me. My uncle knows the catering manager of the Helios, and he called ahead to let him know that I have them. He’s been putting the word out with all of the incoming, and with all the bids sure to come in, I’ll be completely rolling in it. Quite possibly for life. _"_

“So you don’t want to keep them?”

“No. I mean, they're great, but I don’t actually collect the things, and we Ravenclaws have got Tovis in house to reel off all the competitor stats for us at whim. Here, Higgs; autograph it for me, and I’ll have my uncle’s friend put it up on special private auction. Caterers know everybody, and you are the one who came up with the solution, after all, so you’ll _definitely_ be set for life. Quite possibly unto the seventh generation.”

“Handler’s percentage?” Higgs inquired.

“Nope. All yours. Like I said. You came up with the solution. Thanks for that. Well, Smith?”

Smith shifted from foot to foot as Higgs signed with a flourish and passed it back. Once everyone had drifted off, he mumbled.

"Really?" Goldstein looked interested. 

"Yes. And if you tell anybody..."

"I won't," he promised. “Alright. Take your pick."

Smith sorted through the cards. Goldstein peered over his shoulder.

“Natalie Thibaud? Why would you choose her?”

“She’s Canadian. I like Canadians. They have back bacon and northern lights, and toques, and trees that bleed candy. Also, manners. Real ones, not the snide British imitation, and proper senses of humour to go with them.” 

“They do live right above the U.S.,” Anthony agreed. “Psychological survivalism at its best. You're alright," he said as Smith actually snorted in appreciation at that. "I get you. And just so you know, you've got loads of admirers in Ravenclaw. Or at least appreciators."

"Uh?"

"You ask the questions that everybody else is thinking, but are too polite to ask. Maybe you do it because you're naturally rude, but we Ravenclaws do appreciate your efforts, because we all get all the answers without Carpenter smacking us around for them." He handed him a gold-wrapped chocolate coin. "How come you don't complain about that? That's against the rules, you know, and the professors totally let her get away with it because they think you're annoying. You are annoying, but that doesn't mean she has the right to pop you in the nose with it. They're just letting her get away with it because she's a girl and you're a boy. Only they don't see it as real violence, do they? And she's cute. Those curls, those big eyes... She gets away with everything. Only one worse than her for working it is Perks, and at least she keeps her hands to herself."

"What do you care?" Smith asked, unbalanced.

"It's not right, is all," Goldstein said. "They should be fair. If you hit her back, never mind that she hit you first, which one of you do you think they'd put in detention? We talk about these kinds of things in my Talmud class. My rabbi says that nobody should be punished for asking questions, even if you are rude about it because loads of people are rude, but not everybody has a talent for asking questions, and as the answers benefit everybody, you need to think about which part is really most important, the rude, or learning."

"I don't want to learn," Smith said shortly. "I just want to know. Learning takes too long. I'd rather just get the answers straight up and skip the bother."

"Aaaand now we know why you didn't get sent to Ravenclaw." They followed the crowd out as it inched to the portal gate. 

"Don't take this the wrong way, Goldstein," Smith said again. "But what's it to you? Personally?"

"I got behind on my mitzvahs during exams. I'm catching up.” ****

“Alright there, Filius?” Neil was asking the little Charms professor as he herded his own charges. “You’re looking a bit pale.’ ****

“I’m fine,” Flitwick reassured him. “Oh my goodness. I just can’t believe it’s actually happening. We’ve exchanged the occasional note over the decades, of course, through my relatives, but I haven’t seen her for almost fifty years. Goodness, when I think on the last time I saw her… I truly never expected, you know, to see her again this side of time.’ ****

“Who’s he talking on? Macy Corleone murmured to Gabe Truman. “D’you know?’ ****

“Inez Hernandez. Headmistress of Castelobruxo. She came here on her ISEP year the summer after her synchronized twin sister died., and was sorted to Ravenclaw.’ ****

“Her… What?” Macy blinked. “Her synchronized twin _sister_ died, and she _survived_ it? That’s not possible!” ****

“It had never happened before,” Truman corrected. “Doesn’t mean it was impossible. I don’t know the whole story, and I did ask around. The portraits wouldn’t say a word on the subject, they were a bit rude with it, actually. Even Moaning Myrtle; she’d died the year before, and I asked her if she knew her, and she pretended she didn’t hear me. I went to the library to look up the yearbooks, and there weren’t any records of the year at all. They were all missing.’ I asked Madam Pince about it and she got really sniffy and went to look, and pulled it out and said it was right in front of me. Only it hadn’t been, when I’d looked. I looked her up and her name was listed with the ISEP students, but there weren’t any photos or anything. “ ****

“Huh,” Macy said. “Weird. How’d you find out about her then, at all?” ****

“I overheard the Headmaster talking about her to Flitwick again, when I was passing the staff room. Flitwick asked if he’d ever met her when he was down south, and he said no, his trips in and out of the country have tended to be officially unauthorized, and he stayed away from the major hotspots. Just got in, got his herbologist on in terms of collecting his specimens and managing his personal business, and got out again. Flitwick asked him how he managed it without ever getting caught by the authorities, and he didn’t answer, just asked him if he’d like a refill on his coffee.” ****

“Huh. Oop. Here we go.” She braced herself as they came to the turnstile. “Have _any_ of you ever done this before?’ ****

“Yes,” Smith said, and as the clerk waved him into the Vanishing booth, knocked back half his hot chocolate expertly and stepped up. “Hey, Stan,” he greeted him. “You having a good season?’ ****

“Hey, Zach. Just swell.” Stan ran the scanner over him. “Alright, in and out, three times, you know the drill, and hold after the last. And there we go. Perfect. What about you?’ ****

“Eh. Here.” Smith glanced around, slipped a hand into his pocket. “Merry Christmas." Stan palmed the item and did a double-take. ****

“What the… “ ****

“You’ve got nine days before it comes out officially,” Anthony heard the other boy murmur. “My dad says Pertwee down in Care-and Control-Of is completely obsessed, and their Christmas party is tonight. First edition, mint... Get yourself in, play it right - wait till he’s got at least three drinks in him - and you should be able to get enough for a good five years’ worth of the good stuff.” ****

“Zach, man… I… Why?” The clerk looked at a loss. ****

“You really have been smoking the tinsel, haven’t you? See you in a week.” ****

“I...” He watched him trot off, and turned back. “Crazy kid. Next!” ****

Anthony Goldstein hefted his case onto the conveyer and stepped up. ****

“First time?” the clerk inquired as he ran the wand over him. ****

“Yes.” ****

“Alright.” The clerk reeled off the instructions, and tapped his head with his wand. “There you go. Alright then?’ ****

“Mm." Goldstein breathed deeply. “Urgh. That was not kosher.” He glanced over his shoulder, and lowered his voice to a murmur. “Listen, I couldn’t help but overhear you talking to Smith just now. You want to pay him back for that?"

“Uh?” ****

“See the girl with the curly hair there? Third back the line, with the pink coat and the ringlets?"

“Yeah?"

“I’ve read the fine print on the results of what happens if you don’t follow protocols here. I can guarantee she hasn’t. Tell her to hold her breath on three, not after.” ****

“Wow. That’s cold, man. What did she ever do to you?’ ****

“It’s not about me,” Anthony said. “It’s about him again.’ He nodded to Smith. “He’s giving up his hols away from her for this, and she’s the type to make him pay for the privilege. And he told me why he’s going; it’s not like he can hit her back, is it?” ****

 _“What?_ She _hits_ him?” ****

_“Reg_ -ularly. Broke his nose three times this term, just because she doesn’t like his face. Effectively, anyway. Get a load of those ringlets, you really think anyone’s going to call her on it? Over him especially?” ****

“Mm. Off you go, then. NEXT!” ****

And Anthony shouldered his bag and trotted off, humming happily to himself. “Get with the programme, Goldstein,” Jessamyn scolded him as they took their places along the long, stretched and spiraled, waist-high anchored maze of glowing, spaced Christmas tree lights that made up the international portkey. “We all know you’re not a Santa fan, but you could at least try for the seasonal musical the… AHHHHHHHHHH! URRRRRRGH!” ****

“Oh dear _.”_ Anthony stood on his toes and craned his neck. “She must have breathed on three, instead of after. Not an auspicious start, I must say. _To life, to life, l’chaim,"_ he hummed blithely as he settled his feet and grasped the green cord on either side of his designated bulb. ****

_L'chai-im, l'chai-im, to life!_

_One day it's honey and raisin cake,_

_Next day a stomach ache,_

_Drink l'chai-im, to life!_ ****

“Yes?” he inquired of Smith, on his other side and now eying him suspiciously. “Something I can help you with?” ****

“No,” Smith said. Then… “Flex your knees and hold your body a bit twisted and straighten and untwist as you land.”

“Uh?” ****

“The torsion on your internals does something to help things along there. It’s a body mechanics thing. Posture?” he elaborated. “Never mind. If you don't do it ,you'll sick up, and if you do do it, you won’t. “ ****

“How come it’s not listed as a technique that helps?’ ****

“It’s just something I’ve noticed. I dropped something my first time through an intercontinental, and bent to pick it up, and came through without a problem. I did it on the way back, and have kept doing it.” ****

“Couldn’t hurt to try.” Anthony braced himself. “Wait, your _first_ time through? How many times have you done this?’’ ****

“A few,” Smith said, and keeping an eye on the counter on the wall, abruptly… “Who are you rooming with?” ****

“Ron Weasley. Why?” ****

“You feel like making a switch there, if he’s alright with it? I’m down with Finch-Fletchley.” ****

“Sec. WEASLEY! FINCH-FLETCHLEY! ****

“Gotta be more specific, man,” Bill said. “There are a lot of us. RONNIE!” ****

“WHAT?" ****

“You two want to bunk together, so Smith and I can share?’ Anthony called. ****

“Bloody hell, yes,” Justin Finch-Fletchley said. “We do. Nothing against you, mate,” he said hastily to Smith as Smith scowled at him blackly. “But you snore like a minotaur.” ****

“Sure,” Ron said agreeably, as he settled his feet two strands over the maze. “Why not. I’m immune to snoring after sleeping next door to Niamh for the last ten years. Girl’s got adenoids like a stuffed-up stegosaurus.’

“You know what stegosauruses are?” Hermione asked, startled. ****

“Stegosauri. Of course. They’re the magically latent ancestors of the Swedish Short Snouts.” ****

“That’s…” She paused. “Really quite entirely plausible. Huh. Why do you think they died out?’ ****

“Dragons need magic to sustain themselves,” her boyfriend explained. “Charlie told me. So the latent lines, those were what the Mug… Erm. Nomaji call dinosaurs… Could only sustain themselves so long without it before they all…” He gestured, and put his hand hastily back on the cord of lights as it pinged warningly. ****

“So dragons have really been around that long?’ ****

“Their ancestors, anyway. They’ve evolved periodically over the eons to their current versions. You should ask him about it, he can recite the bloodlines back further than the Blacks. Quite impressive, really. He made charts when he was a kid and everything. They were brilliant.’ ****

“Where is he, anyway?’ she asked. “I didn’t see him with the rest of you. “ ****

“Ah. He left last night, with Draco Malfoy. They took the plane over with Madam Longbottom.” ****

“Draco _Malfoy?_ Took an _airplane?’_ ****

“Don’t ask me.” Ron shrugged. “I asked him, Charlie, that is, and he said he got a floo call from Ren, asking him if he’d bring him over early. Said his folks had some news for him that they wanted to break before everyone else got there, and no, that it didn’t have anything to do with Solace. That’s all he’d tell me though, so… That’s all I’ve got.’ ****

“Huh. Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” The counter on the wall jingled. “Oop. Alright then. Here we…” ****

And the maze of Christmas tree lights lit up in a blaze of brilliant colour, and the song of sleigh bells filled the air, and the world began to spin.

* * *

**The Borealis Suite**

**The Helios**

**New York City**

**December 23, 1991**

**6.30 A.M E.S.T (Eastern Standard Time)**

**Three-Ish Hours Earlier**

“This,” Fleamont Henry (Tony) Potter (de Silva) pronounced as he perched on the back of the biggest sofa in the stupendously extravagant family suite, his thin, agile little fingers flying as he brushed and braided his companion’s hip-length hair, “is complete and absolute _rubbish_. They expect to slot us right back in, no harm no foul, when we've got absolutely no context to work with! No context, and no _plan!_ Not even a working _explanation!_ And alright, two months doesn't sound like much, but it is. never mind the essential aesthetic contradictions and the fact that the entire incoming population of Esconderijo will be sure to tell them that we’ve been living there for two _years!_ It's a _lot,_ especially when you’re supposed to have been living with people who you’re supposed to _know,_ and who are supposed to know _you!_ They're all going to figure us out in a minute! No, not even a minute; in two _seconds!”_

“I’m well aware, Potter.” His companion winced at a particularly vigorous and emphatic tug. “Ow. Here. Use the detangler already. Well, _well_ aware. I’ve only been citing the problematic at them every hour on the hour for the last six months, yeah? And they all say the same thing every time; ‘it’s our problem when it comes right down to it, Longbottom, not yours,’ except, no. It’s really, really not. Never mind that they’re all supposed to be all over _preventing_ problems, I’m telling you the same thing I’ve told them; I can’t come up with a workable strategy if they don’t provide me with details. Real details, not projected and unconfirmed hypotheticals Here. Use the ribbons. No, not the red and orange ones. The blue ones. And the green ones.”

“It’s rubbish,” the smaller boy pronounced again as he obliged, weaving deftly. “No. It’s bollocks. Bloody _bleeding_ bollocks, even, and, don’t you go over all austere at me. You’re thinking it, and I’m just expressing myself on your behalf. You’re welcome.’

The now-eleven-year-old Neville Frank ‘Ace’ Longbottom-of-Longbottom (though Tony Silva was quite correct in that he actually looked closer to fourteen these days than the other) actually slumped a little.

"I’m austered out,” he said morosely. “On the subject, anyway. It _is_ complete bollocks. Did the Project Managers think for a _second_ when they were all planning this about what would happen after Big Harry and Big Nev ticked the last item off their to-do list and left us to live on after in their brave new world? No, of course they didn’t, because if things had gone the way they originally planned, all of the people they knew, _ergo_ who processed as real to them at that point, would have been shot of the aftermath: _i.e._ dead. No, no lace this time. Just the regular ribbons.’

“But the lace is pretty !” Potter protested. “And it’s not like you can’t carry it off. Not many people could, you know, but your eyebrows balance things there.”

“It’s not about carrying it off. It’s about me not feeling lacy right now.”

“Fine. As long as it’s not because you’re hiding. Because there’s really no point there. If the hair doesn’t give you away, the flower fetish will, and if the flower fetish doesn’t, the obsession with writing poetry will, and if _that_ doesn’t do the job, the public announcement that we’re synchronized _definitely_ will.”

“I’m not hiding anything. And it was - is - only one poem. And it’s only technically a poem. It’s really more of a saga. An _historical_ saga. An _epic_ historical saga. For the _ages_.”

“It rhymes, Ace. And has a properly established and appropriately employed meter. That makes it a poem. A hundred and fifty-six pages’ worth of self-reiterating - reiteratively? - rhyming-and- appropriately-employed metered poem, just in case anyone who reads it has any question there. Which they don’t. And won’t.”

“The rhymes and the meter are there to provide form and structure for the story, Potter, not to define it in and of itself. Like trellises and scaffolding, that support and shape of plants, but aren’t actually part of the living garden. And again. Not embarrassed. Just not feeling particularly lacy.’

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” his partner allowed magnanimously. “We all have our leather-and-chain days. But you still have to wear them when we do make the official announcement, because I sweated over the vintage floral patterns there for _hours, and_ broke my favourite crochet hook with it, and your rejection of my efforts on socio-political self-conscious principle would be hurtful, to say the least.”

“Mm.” Longbottom stood and stretched as he left off tucking the last ribbon in, and threw himself into the armchair, disgruntled. Potter slid down cross-legged and regarded him. His thin, agile little face was no longer quite so thin as he’d had been when the two boys had first met two years ago, but he was as proportionately small and scrawny as ever - no longer the size of a smallish six year old, but a moderately well-grown eight. Spikes included, he now came barely to Longbottom’s immaculately clad breastbone.

“Do you think your Gran will be bothered?” he asked. “By your hair, not the bent?”

“No. Long hair’s an established European variant for men and women alike, if not tradition, and her hair was just as long as mine when she was in school. She’s got no room to talk.” He stood though, and went to the washroom to examine himself in the mirror. Potter followed, perching on the edge of the tub as he watched him... The sea-foam green and deep blue ribbons woven through the intricately styled side braid went extremely well with the starched, open-collared teal dress shirt, the pressed navy tailored slacks and short vest, and the shining black dress shoes… The last bit of baby fat had disappeared short weeks after the group returning from Cross World had made their way to the tropics, and his pale skin was glowing with a healthy tan. 

The same hours in the sun had had an even more striking effect on Potter himself. His own sickly white complexion had darkened with the constant intense exposure, and was now the colour of sweet, light caramel. Between his striking emerald eyes (oddly and apparently several shades lighter now, rather than brighter, for the contrast) and pitch black hair, Professora Inez Hernandez had noted that his grandmother, Euphemia Potter’s, Indian heritage was absolutely unmistakable - and, much to his pleasure, his resemblance to his parents, or so Frankie’s employer, Ragnuk the Eighth, had noted in turn, that much less pronounced. He was still definitively a Potter, the king of the Goblin Nation had told him, particularly with his grandfather Fleamont’s hair and dubiously exuberant fashion sense, but he was definitely more of a variant on the theme rather than a carbon copy of those gone before him.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said. “I know you’re nervous.”

“It’s not…” Longbottom sank down on the edge of the tub beside him. “I’ve just changed. A lot. I don’t even look like the same person. And we know now she knows, but still. For her… It’s only been a few weeks since she last saw me."

“I’m sure she’s seen the photo that Al sent Big Harry by now, so it won’t be a total surprise. They’re not bad changes,” Potter pointed out encouragingly. “Quite brilliant, really, _I_ think. And you can’t really do much about it anyway, so why worry? Genetics are genetics, never mind all the healthy veg and exercise.”

“Big Nev wasn’t nearly as big as I am at our age. Not _nearly.”_

“You’re not Big Nev.” He took his hand. “You’re you. You look the same as he will; you’re just genetically set to get there faster again. Like I’m genetically set to be built like my mum was instead of like my dad, like Big Harry was.” 

“I know, and I don’t mind. I’m just worried she will."

“I reckon she’ll just be happy you’re home safe, Ace. Whatever you look like.” He nudged him with his little shoulder. “Come on. Talk to me. What is it, really?’

“I just can’t go back. To the way I was. Or the way she thought I was. And how’s she going to feel when it processes that I was lying to her all these years about who I am?”

“You weren’t lying. You were hiding. Because you were scared,” Potter said patiently. “That everyone would think you’re nutters. Or evil. And she had enough to deal with. You were saving her worry, not lying.” He squeezed the bigger boy’s fingers. “You knew you weren’t bad. But you don’t have any control over what other people think. Or how. And you were too young to be able to explain without them just being scared themselves, of your potential. So you were just… Being kind. I reckon you _can_ be self-interested and kind too, yeah, at the same time? I reckon maybe Padre Tony would say that It’s biblical even. Love your neighbour, or Gran, as yourself. You loved her not as yourself, but more than yourself, because it did hurt you to hide. She’ll understand that, Ace. If I can understand, she can. And if she doesn’t… Well. I’ll just explain. I’ll explain and explain till she does understand. I’ll even do it with manners.”

Longbottom's own fingers curled around his tightly. 

“You’re brilliant too,” he said, and a bit diffidently... “I love you, Flea.”

“I love you too, Ace.“ Potter patted his arm. “And I like it.”

“You like what?"

“That you’re so big now. Being little is complete rubbish. Except when it’s next to you." He pulled back, immediately flustered as Longbottom’s eyes locked on his and his lips started to tilt at him crookedly. “Argh. No. I was just _saying!_ Stop that!” 

“But I’m exp _ressing_ myself, Potter!” he teased. “It’s _good_ for me!’”

“Shut it. We’re headed back to the land of the repressed. Must get our stiff upper lips and public reserve on. Also, we have to tell your Gran about us first, and if you keep doing that, the blush _will_ stick, and I’ll totally give us away. Do you think people will call me Flea?”

“They can’t exactly call you Harry, can they, since you’ve officially given the name away?”

“This is very true,” Potter conceded. “Alright. How long before they all get here?’

“The portkeys start activating at one or one-thirty their time, so… Five hours difference; that’s eight or eight-thirty here. Though it’ll take them all at least an hour to get through Ellis Island, so… Nine-thirty or so? Three hours.”

“Brilliant. Just enough time to redo my spikes and to go out for a proper sit-down brekkie before we come back to meet with your Gran. What are you in the mood for?”

“Information,” Longbottom said dourly. “So I can work up a proper strategy for what’s coming next.”

“Mm.” Potter rummaged in the drawer and pulled out an enormous bottle of Sleekeazy and a small leather case, boosting himself up on the countertop and settling on his knees before the gigantic mirror as he prepared to wrestle with his own hair. “Should we get Hectorito and the others? They should all be up by now.”

“This is New York, Potter. Do you have any idea how much trouble you and Hectorito could- would - get into?”

“Your faith in us is overwhelming, Ace. Really.”

“I have faith in you. To the point, anyway, but again. New York. The leths here don’t bother politely waiting till you’re distracted or sleeping here. They just grab you and chomp, along with a side of cream cheese and lox.”

“Mm,” Potter said dreamily. “Lox. Can we stop off at Zabar’s?”

“I…” He turned as the door slammed, and a bright voice halloo’ed. “Bollocks.”

“It’s obviously Beautiful Jesus’ will. _HECTORITO_!” he called. "In here! All settled in, then?”

 _“Sim,”_ ten-year-old Hector Ramone Lopez de Garcia, eldest son of _Senhora Presidente_ Carmen Bianca Lopez de Garcia and Tomas Eduardo Navarro de Garcia said, appearing in the doorway. “Hola _mi amigos!”_ He offered Longbottom a hearty hug, and waggled his fingers at Potter. _“_ It is so good to see you! _Nao,_ Anna-Luisa is quite annoyed that I was not sick at all after the portkey series, and told me to leave her to die in peace. She will not die, but she is not done her whining yet, and that is never pleasant, never mind that she is about to be blessed with _Madre_ Eve’s Sorrows again. It is best to offer my sympathies there from a distance.”

“Ah,” Longbottom said prudently. “Definitely Zabar’s then. We’ll pick her up some dark chocolate marzipan. How is everyone else feeling after the jump last night?”

“Poorly,” Hectorito said sadly, sinking down on the shining toilet lid. A trim, tidy boy with a neat cap of blue-black hair, deceptively angelic features and wide-set, chronically dulcet dark eyes, he was quite respectable in his black dress shoes and matching cardigan, neat dark denims, and green polo shirt, but he fairly and alarmingly vibrated with energy. “Very poorly. I am so sad for all of them, even though they are not at all happy for me, that I have escaped their suffering. What can you do.” He examined the two of them and brightened. “Are you arranging an adventure, then, and am I invited?”

“We were thinking on going out for brekkie, actually. Frankie and Stel and Padre Tony just left; they had to take care of some business at MACUSA, though they said they’d be back in time for the reunion with Ace’s gran and told us to order up whatever we want in the meantime, but… Meh. That’s boring. And you’ll have to ask Ace,” Potter said. “He doesn’t _trust_ us together.”

“I will be good, _Senhor_ Longbottom! _We_ will be good, we promise!” Four huge and imploring eyes, two emerald, two onyx, batted at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Longbottom said sourly. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“I have Nomajic money," Hectorito offered, pulling out a thick wallet from an inside pocket. A second item followed; he scrambled guiltily to pick it up as it fell... Potter’s eyes popped. Longbottom’s narrowed.

“And where, may I ask,” he said ominously. “Did _that_ come from?”

“Ah. I… Brought it with me? From home? It was _Tio_ Ramone’s, I think” he explained, as Longbottom took the wand and examined it. “I found it when Dito and I were visiting his grandmother Rosa last week, and were in his old room. It was under a floorboard. It did not react to him, Dito that is, but I introduced myself, and I do not know that we are destined to be companions, but we are friends now, at least, and I thought it might like to come to New York for the adventure And _sim,_ I know I am only ten, but the magic is so fluid here, compared to at home even after the surges, that it does not seem to care that I am underage at all, see?” He took it back, and waved it with a flourish. “LUMOS!” It flared dazzlingly and obligingly.

“Mmm. And where did you get Nomajic money again? We know it’s not from your ICW-issued allowance; even with your credit badger you just arrived last night and the exchange tellers downstairs aren’t open yet.” 

“Ah. Well, as my birthday on St. Stephen’s day, the 26th, and I shall not be at home to receive their offerings, the extended family all gave me the traditional little love-gifts in advance, in local Nomajic currency again, to spend here in New York.” 

“Even your _Abuelo_ Estevan?” 

Hectorito’s face promptly soured. Longbottom elbowed Potter. Hard.

 _“Nao,_ ” he said shortly. “And I will thank you to remember, _Senhor_ Flea, that however close our families, Estevan Rocha dos Santos is not my _abuelo._ He is Dito’s _abuelo,_ and my godfather’s adopted father, and as long as he is so rude to _Tio_ Ramone, I wish nothing to do with him. I sent the gift he offered back.”

“Really?”

 _“Sim,_ really. He is an idiot. What does it matter whether _Tio_ had a little association with _Senhor Ministro_ Malfoy when they were young? He had a little association with Mami too, and _they_ had Anna-Luisa. Beautiful Jesus obviously does not hold it against him, since He called him to serve Him as a priest, and now he is as good and faithful there as he should be, and has no associations with anyone, man _or_ woman.”

“I think it’s prolly more that Bishop Silva hexed his arse,” Potter said practically. “In front of everyone in the village when he suggested that his nephew was a corrupting influence on the children at the school. He was quite offended at his insinuations.”

“We were all offended.” Hectorito sniffed. “He is so ungrateful, truly. All those years of thinking his son was lost, and now that he is returned to us, he is just angry because _Tio_ Ramone will not tell him that he is sorry for the fact that he once loved another man? _Tio_ Pablo said that he might as well expect the sky to apologize for being blue, and the specific man considered, that no one is feeling ashamed for him, only regretful that it was him and not them. Then Mami asked if she should apologize too, for her Moment with him, and for Anna-Luisa, and he said it was not the same thing at all, and she said no, it is not, one resulted in a child and the other in a magical innovation that literally saved thousands of lives, and the world too. _Then_ she asked him if he was sorry for having women besides Dito’s _Abuela_ Rosa, and if he intended to become a priest in repentance, or to at least to give them up, and _that_ was very funny.”

“Did Dito’s _Abuela_ Rosa think so?’

 _“Sim._ She enjoys seeing him called out. Much more so than she has ever enjoyed catching him out, the great _puta,_ or hearing him whine on how having other women when you are married it is so commonplace it is practically custom. _Tio_ Pablo pointed out to him that similar arrangements between schoolboys is custom in England, likely to preserve the girls’ reputations, and that _Tio_ Ramone was just making _Senhor Ministro_ Malfoy feel welcome, as a good host should, and providing him with comfort besides when his mama was lost. Also, that there was no deception involved there on anyone’s part, which is more than _Abuelo_ Estevan may claim, since having met _Senhora_ Malfoy now, he is fairly certain that it was all her idea. Mami said that Jesus obviously appreciated her understanding, and is rewarding her threefold for her compassion and generosity, never mind the fact that she stood by the _Senhor Ministro_ so faithfully during their own war. _That_ was when Dito and I were sent from the room.” He tucked the wand and the wallet away. “ _Tio_ Pablo said he was a great hypocrite, he has always known that _Tio_ Ramone preferred men, he has only pretended not to because of the lethifolds, and his moral indignation is completely self-serving - that he knew that he and _Abuela_ Rosa would never have abandoned _Tio_ Ramone on his word, and not because of the lethifolds either, and so if anyone had had to leave the family, it would have been _Abuelo_ Estevan again. And that that is why he was a bad husband and had other women, and _Abuelo_ Estevan tried to turn it around and asked _Tio_ Pablo if he had never had another woman besides _Tia_ Bonita, and _Tio_ Pablo said of course, before they were married, as was, if not quite moral, at least more appropriate. Then someone cast a silence spell, so we could not hear anything else at all, even through the wall." 

“What does he think of Padre Tony?” Potter asked with interest. “And _Dona_ Carlotta? As the products of Bishop Silva and Professora Hernandez’ Moment, do you know?” Hectorito flipped a hand.

“His Grace was not a priest then,” he said. “And Professora Hernandez is a woman, not another man. On the personal level… Padre Tony says that he needs to examine the theological importance of verb tenses when casting stones, _i.e._ ‘is sinning’ as opposed to ‘sinned’. Also ‘forgiveness’, ‘mercy’, ‘context’, ‘subjective morality’ and ‘minding your own fuckin’ business, you flea-bitten, finger-pointing hell-bound pharisee’.” 

“I only bit him once!” the Flea in question protested, around his sniggers. “And I didn’t even get called up for tea for it, did I, since I told Bishop Silva it was because he was staring at Stel again, and making her really uncomfortable. It wasn’t even about expressing myself, I said, it was admonishment of sinners _in situ_ of _in situ Christi_ , since Padre Tony wasn’t there to do it, and I’m his son!”

“And what did he say to _that?’_

 _“Muito bueno,_ Beautiful Jesus is very pleased, we will make a canon lawyer out of you yet, here, have a little chocolate; he must have tasted absolutely terrible, and as you do not rate the penance, there is no reason why you should suffer.’

Both Longbottom and Hectorito guffawed. Loudly.

“It is silly,” Hectorito pronounced again decisively, boosting himself up beside Flea and examining the assorted scattered tubes of glitter with interest. “The pink, it is a bit much, I think. He is silly. _And_ ungrateful, as I said. Again, it is not every day one has one’s lost child returned to you, and all he can think on now is that he was not told of the secret. Which was perfectly sensible, since he is a Nomaj and could not have hoped to be able to keep it. Papa, as a Mind Healer, says that of course the reminder does not help, and the family must try to understand his pain and resentment, and what it is truly about and what it is not, but it is very difficult when he is so very crude and cruel and obnoxious with it.”

“He’ll come around eventually,” Potter said bracingly. “Once he’s had a bit of time to process. Also, no. It’s not a bit much. It’s an exercise in filial spiritual soli _darity_ , in the face of Padre Tony’s concurrent joy and despair in returning, triumphantly vindicated, to the land of the Godless heathens. “

“Uh?”

“It’s not pink,” Potter translated. "It’s rose. _Gaudete_ rose, see?” He pointed. “ As in Gaudete Sunday. Scorp made me the entire line for an Advent present in all the colours on the Church seasons. Ai-Mami Blue, Penitential Purple, Temporally Standardized Green, Gaudete Night - that one glows in the dark - Holy Spirited Red, Washed-In-The-Blood-Of White, and For-The-Greater-Glory-of-God Gold.” 

“Very nice. One can hope,” Hectorito said. “On him coming around. All things are possible with God.” He sighed as he set down the glitter.. “I cannot believe the lethifolds are all gone. It seems a dream.”

“You’re not mad at us, are you?” Potter asked as he brushed Temporally Standardized Green liberally into his rejuvenated spikes. “That we knew Sunrise was coming all along, and didn’t tell you?’

 _“Nao,_ of course not. I am not a stupid-head like _Abuelo_ Estevan, completely unable to grasp the concept of logical discretion. The more people who knew, after all, the more of a likelihood that it would not have worked. And I am grateful, truly, that you had that comfort, away from your families. That you have families. More family,” he qualified. “And that we have had _you._ It was very difficult, heh, before you came, and Dito and I had only each other as friends, and for _Senhorita_ Marina, who had none at all. But Beautiful Jesus was good, and brought us together, and now the four of you who never had brothers or sisters have many, in us, and I have even more. To him that hath shall be given, heh?” He shook his head. “I cannot believe that the Master-Adept is _Tio_ Frankie’s son, and Senhor Al’s brother-in-law, _and_ your cousin, Senhor Neville! And the Headmaster of Hogwarts his _abuelo,_ and _Tio_ Frankie’s papa? It is all like a fairy tale, truly.”

“It’ll be quite the family reunion, ” Longbottom agreed. “Though we’ll end up having to hand out family trees to everyone to keep everything straight at this rate.”

Hectorito grinned at that, but before he could respond, there was a frantic knocking at the front door of the suite. 

“Hold up. Yes?” Neville called, pressing the wall intercom. “Who is it?’

“Your elder and better,” a young, deeply accented and decidedly cranky (and cracking) young male voice said. “ _Nossa,_ this place is insane. I nearly lost myself trying to find the washroom in my own suite, and walked in on Papi and Mami instead. Again. I am pleased that they have a happy marriage, truly, and even more so that Mami seems finally to have mastered silence spells, but now I am traumatized for life, again, and was forced to flee. Again. _Senhorita_ Marina said that she will be along as soon as she has bleached her eyes. Now let me in, you great English turtle, before I piss myself.”

 _“Bom dia_ to you too, amigo.” Neville pressed the rune to open the front door as the three boys hastily vacated the specified premises, ducking back against the wall as a leather and denim clad wheeled blur catapulted through. “So nice to see you! It’s all yours.’

 _“Obrigado. “_ The three boys waited… Just as the newcomer, looking much relieved, emerged, the third knock sounded, and an extremely short girl, barely taller than Potter, ducked in, glancing over her shoulder and closing the door hastily behind her. She collapsed back against it, looking most harried and even more nauseated. 

“Do not tell me,” the newcomer greeted her as he emerged from the washroom. Potter promptly re-entered, boosting himself on the counter and retrieving his glitter. “Mami’s silence spells failed as you were searching for the bleach?”

“They did. I am scarred,” _Senhorita_ Marina Ortiz, a.ka. The Sword of Venezuela and adopted daughter of Ragnuk the 8th, King of the Goblin Nation announced mournfully. “ _Scarred,_ I tell you! I did not think I had room on me for more scars, but there it is. I do not know how I can be expected to go on, truly. Also, your American guards are right behind me, Dito. They are not pleased that you managed to slip them, even if they do know that you have likely just come here.”

Twelve-year-old Benedito Juan Federico Sales de Rocha dos Santos, Captain of the Rio Magico Home Guard and no-longer- _de facto_ Head Auror of South America, Central America and the Pacific Islands, muttered a very bad word in Spanish, repeating it in Portuguese for good measure. _“Momente,"_ he said, and wheeled his chair back out into the hall. “I will take care of this.” Much shouting followed, colourful and creative... He returned in short order, looking most irritated.

“Alright then?” his best friend inquired.

 _“Nao._ Though now I know where Americans keep their wands when they are not using them. They stow them up their rears. I am permitted to visit you privately in this suite, but they are lying in wait for me outside now. As soon as I leave, they will be on me again."

“Mm.” Potter slid down from the counter, gathering up his various paraphernalia and stowing it away. “Alright. I think I’m done here. Well, Ace?’

“Very nice. Wash your hands.”

“Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Come on,” the smaller boy coaxed. “I’ll bring us right back in plenty of time to meet with your Gran, and they’ll never know we’re gone.”

“And what if Frankie and Stel and Padre Tony come back early?’

“They won’t. The investiture’s tomorrow night. They’ll be at MACUSA all day, except for the meeting again, supervising the final set-up. It’ll be fine. We have loads of money, and kids go to restaurants in New York by themselves all the time. We’ve seen it. We’ll go there, order, eat, and come right back in. What could go wrong?”

They all looked at Hectorito dubiously. He looked up from examining his wand.

 _“Sim?”_ he inquired.

“You’ll leave that here,” Longbottom said firmly. “And if you blow anything up while we’re out, Hector Ramone Lopez de Garcia…”

“I will not, _Senhor_ Neville, I swear it! I will be as good as gold! For-The-Greater-Glory-Of-God Gold, even!” He examined Potter’s spikes. “They are very nice. You look like you are sprouting Christmas trees instead of spikes. Perhaps if you added a little pine-scented spray freshener for extra verisimilitude?"

“How are we going to get out?" Dito asked practically as Potter ignored that. “There is only one door. Never mind that we do not have our boots and coats.”

“Where are yours?” Potter asked him.

“In the closet by the door of our suite?’

 _“Momente.”_ They all jumped violently as he quite suddenly disappeared. He returned just as quickly, arms laden.

“I could go there because I knew where it was,” he explained. “Padre Tony was supervising the set up there for you two days ago, and I was holding his fuckin’ coffee. Here, I got yours too, _Senhorita_ Marina, and as for you, Hectorito…”

“Allow me.” Longbottom half-lidded his eyes… It took a certain amount of effort, but slowly, Hectorito’s cardigan turned to a jacket, and his shoes to waterproof boots.

“You Apparated?” Dito said, astonished, to Flea. “How is that possible? And do not the wards here forbid it in any case?”

“It wasn’t Apparition. It was something else, that I can just… Do, that acts like Apparition.” It was vague. “Padre Tony knows about it, but he made me promise never to tell anybody about it, or to use it while we were in South America unless it was a vital emergency because it might attract negative attention, but we’re not in South America right now, are we?”

“You know that he will say that Beautiful Jesus will say that that is nothing but working a fuckin’ loophole,” Hectorito observed, and zipped the jacket. “Do you not? _Obrigado_ , _Senhor_ Neville. Did he not tell you that you are not supposed to practise your version of wandless either, without permission?”

“I wasn’t practicing. It would only be practicing if I hadn’t got it on the first go. Since I did manage it, it's accomplishing.”

“Mm. Never mind the fuckin’ loopholes, you are rather working the fuckin’ homonyms, heh?”

“Precision,” the English boy said austerely. “Exactitude. They _are_ transfigurative imperatives, _Senhor_ Lopez de Garcia, and since I just transfigured your clothes, the maxim does apply. He should have known better than to leave me that loophole. “ 

“How atypically rebellious of you.” Dito snapped on his leather half-gloves. “Are we perhaps attempting to avoid the thought that our _abuela,_ parents and godparents are all, as of this very moment, In The Building? And that we are scheduled to meet up with them in…” He checked the _tempus_ on the arm of his chair. “Two hours and thirty-nine minutes precisely?”

“Bite me, Sales. No, wait. Your guards aren’t here to protest, or witness for that matter, so Flea, you have my blessing to bite _him.”_

“That was very unkind, Dito,” Marina said reprovingly to her foster brother. “He has not seen them in almost two years. He is bound to be a little nervous, especially since he has changed so very much since they last saw him. It will be fine, _Senhor_ Neil.” She kissed his cheek. “I am so sorry. _Senhor_ Neville. It is very challenging to adjust to all of the revelations that have come of late, _sim?’_

“It’s alright,” he reassured her. “You can call me whatever you’re most comfortable with. It’s just Neil with an extra ‘v’ and ‘le’ anyway. Here. Flea has to take us through in lots, one at a time. I’ll go first, and get the good corner booth.“

“Where are we going?” Potter asked. 

“The Popover Cafe,” Longbottom decided. “They’ll have just opened properly, so there’ll be loads of tables. And there’s that little side alley there too, two doors down, where you can drop us all off without being noticed.”

“And you are certain that the proprietors will not object to the fact that we have no adults with us?’ Marina inquired.

“No. They know me and Flea; we’ve been here for ten days now and have gone in four times, so it should be fine. We’ll just tell them our parents are in meetings, and sent us over with the company driver, along with the money to take you out now that you’re in for the big conference with your own parents. And no, Hectorito, you don’t have to pay for all of us. We’ve both got loads, and we’ll just save the receipt anyway so that Frankie can file it with all of the others he’s collecting for the ICW.”

“Very nice. Which big conference is that?"

“No idea,” Potter said. “We don’t know the details; we’re only eleven and twelve, and are completely uninterested in our parents’ business stuff. We just know that there is one.’

“Ah,” Hectorito nodded knowledgeably. He glanced around, then lifted a sofa cushion and tucked his wand prudently under. “ _Bueno._ It will be fine, waiting for me here.”

“Unless someone returns unexpectedly and sits on it. _Nossa,_ you are not just a killer of coconuts, you have one for a brain. Here. Give it to me.” Dito tucked it in the carry-on satchel of his chair. “Now if my guards are upset when we come back, I may truthfully tell them that I went out protected.”

“With an unregistered wand?"

“What are they going to do, demand that I arrest myself for it?’ he said reasonably. “If they are annoyed, I will simply tell them I was doing my job in confiscating it from one of my people who was not supposed to have it. They will ask me from whom, then; I will tell them, and they will shut up in a moment, all of them - my regular guards because they know him, and will be so grateful for my good sense, and MACUSA because, as he is underage, they would be arresting _Senhora Presidente_ _Mama Brasil_ in her son’s place, and that would be somewhat less than good press just now.”

“And what if they confiscate it from you, and will not give it back to me?" Hectorito protested. 

“Then, as it is a South American wand, they will, upon request, send it back to the office of the Captain of the Rio Magico Guard; that would be me again, and when your case comes up on the docket, I will find you innocent of everything but abject stupidity - unfortunately, not an indictable crime- and will return it to you.”

“You have processed, have you not, that everyone considers it a strictly honourary title till you come of age?”

“They will take me exactly as seriously as I demand they do,” Benedito Juan Federico Sales de Rocha dos Santos said coolly. “Or they will pay the price when I _do_ come of age, and am in a formal position to demonstrate that I have, as has been our charge all these centuries, remembered their names.”

“Well done, _you,_ ” Potter said approvingly. “Alright, Ace. Ready? One-two-three, bang-goes- _we!”_

And they promptly disappeared. The three remaining children blinked.

“That is very useful,” Marina noted. “I can see why Padre Tony told him not to tell anyone. The _cabroes_ would not have been pleased there at all. _Momente,_ I will just…” She gestured. “You may tell _Senhor_ Flea that I will go last.’

“They have washrooms at the restaurant, woman. You cannot wait that long?”

Marina just disappeared down the hall. Even as she did so...

“Next!” Potter popped back in. Three trips later, and they were all ducking into the bright, warm fragrant restaurant.

 _“Hola,_ kids!” the hostess greeted them as they approached. “Right this way. Nev asked for the corner booth again, but it’s not really designed to accommodate the chair, so we’ll set you up at the table by the fireplace; is that okay? This weather’s got to be a bit of a shock to your system, he said you’re coming in from the tropics?”

“Sim,” Hectorito said. “We arrived just last night. This is a very nice establishment,” he said, looking around once they were settled. “I can see why you like it, _Senhor_ Neville. The teddy bears are very apropos.”

“Yes, well.” Longbottom opened his menu. “Do try and keep in mind that, despite the fixed and beady button eyes, they are in fact, stuffed toys, without so much as a whiff of coconut fiber to compromise their fluff?” 

“I am not stupid, _Senhor_ Neville. I…”

His affronted half-sniff was complemented by a prompt sharp bang and a multi-voiced howl from the direction of the kitchens. He slumped down so that only his hair and his eyes showed over the edge of the table. His companions all glared.

“Nothing to worry about,” the waiter reassured them, flustered, as he emerged with two huge pots of spiced cocoa. “One of the trays of popovers from the oven just... Um.”

“Popped?" Potter suggested brightly. Hectorito glared at him.

“Is that typical?" Dito inquired, equally brightly. “Because South American popovers, they do not have that feature."

“Neither do North American ones, usually,” the waiter admitted. “But it’s two days till Christmas. Maybe they were suffering from anticipatory festive overload?’

“I am sure that is it,” Marina said firmly, glaring warningly at the sniggering boys. She paused as a thought struck her. “I do not suppose you make them with coconut oil?’

“No,” the waiter said. “Though it’s funny you asked that. It was one of our specialty batches: pineapple coconut cream. Would you like to try one?"

“No,” Longbottom said austerely before she could respond. “She would not. None of us will, we’ll just have the plain ones with whatever we order. All of us will, won’t we.” It was not a question.

“I’m fine with that,” Potter reassured him as the others murmured consent. “No, no churro pancakes this time. D’you have any lox, because I have a real craving for some reason.”

“Do we have… This is New _York,_ sweetie. Do dogs have fleas?’

“Mine do. Well, one of them at least. I have three at home, and they have me. The first is Lola, named after Lola the Showgirl because she has yellow feathers, and because I was born Harry, or Henrique, _i.e._ Rico, and my dad’s Tony. Nobody got shot there though, we all just live together without any of the fuss in the song, and Louis and Ella are her puppies. They were born a few weeks after she showed up preggers on our doorstep, and we just kept them all. They’re named after Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, the puppies, I mean, because me and my dad both love jazz, and think they’re wicked brill.”

“Alright then. No arguments here. Short version on the lox: yes, of course.”

“I’ll have that, then. With two extra helpings. Mm. Lox.”

“Eggs?” the waiter suggested as he scribbled on his pad. “Bagel? Cream cheese? Fruit salad? I do realize that they’re all completely superfluous when it comes down to it, but they come on the plate as well, along with a lovely accompanying glass of milk.”

“That’d be alright,” Potter conceded magnanimously. “Life should be all about the full experience, after all. Scrambled, rye-and-toasted, and no cantaloupe in the salad, please. Bleah. Oh, and can I get some of the little salty green things with that? The things you sprinkle on the cream cheese, before you put the lox on?”

“Capers? You got it. Now, who’s next..."

* * *

**The Helios**

**New York City**

**9 A.M-ish**

"I have to say," Anthony Goldstein said perkily as he trotted along the silky-smooth and gold-inlaid auto-cleaning marble floors of the Helios' private Magical subway station. "That that wasn't _nearly_ as bad as I thought it would be. What about you, Carpenter? Was it as bad as you thought it would be?"

Emily Carpenter just moaned. Remus Lupin gave the young Ravenclaw a reproving look as ushered his charges through the sapphire crystalline gates that formed the framework of the grand lifts.

"That's enough, Anthony," he said. "Seasonal charity and good will. It's a thing. Alright everyone. You know the drill. We're going up, disembarking in the main lobby, and going straight to the left and the registration desk. Stay with your groups, and remember, we're British! We believe in law, order, and the neat orderly queue! Alright there, Siri?"

"No. That was horrid, Moony," Sirius said pitifully as he staggered through. "There are no _words_ for how horrid that was. Even Azkaban wasn't that horrid. Even Sunday dinner with my _relatives_ was never that horrid!"

"There, there," his fiance said bracingly. "It's done and over, and now we can all just put it out of our minds, at least for the next week, and enj.." He stopped in his tracks as the huge lift slid open. "What the hell?"

“Helga’s hardy _hemorrhoids,_ ” Jessamyn Rhodes said prayerfully. Her assorted housemates gawked right along with her. “What the… Did we get off at the wrong floor?”

”You did not,” a familiar mild, husky voice said. She squealed and attacked the man before them. He laughed, and tweaked her Santa hat. Her bells jingled seductively.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Miss Claus,” Ren said. “How was the trip?”

“Dismaying,” she said. “And …” She stopped as a furious roar sounded. “Was that the _Headmaster?_ What’s going on? That didn’t sound very festive at a…” The roar redoubled.

“That’s what we said," a short, extremely grizzled goblin agreed sourly as he wound his way through the milling, furious and screaming crowds packing the vast shimmering lobby. "Watch your step, you lot. Not everyone here's as tall as you, and we don't appreciate being tripped over."

“Was that the Head of _Gringotts’ International?_ ’ Terence Higgs said, gobsmacked as he disappeared into the furor. “What the hell is going _on_ here?’

“There’s been a bit of a…” Ren sighed as the Director of the MA-NYAD approached. “Here we go. Brace yourselves."

“Why is that woman so upset?” Susan Bones inquired, cranking her neck. “Oh my God!" Her eyes widened. “That’s the President of Brazil! Carmen Lopez de Garcia! And she’s crying! Why is she crying? What's happened, what's going on?"

“Nothing that concerns any of you. You will all make your way back into the lifts,” the Director said crisply to the students, or as crisply as he seemed to be able, which wasn’t very. “Registration has been temporarily rerouted to the second floor. You will go directly to your rooms from there, and…:

Anthony nudged Smith. “I brought the cards for a reason, like I said, ” he murmured. “Work your magic effectively, and I’ll give you five percent."

“What’s going on here?” Smith bellowed promptly at the top of his extremely healthy lungs. Such were the acoustics in the arched and soaring dome above them that the bellow actually echoed over the din. Heads and bodies promptly turned, startled. “Wait, is that the new President of _Brazil?_ Why is she crying? And why is the entire Imperial Guard of the Goblin Nation here, along with their King? And you’re the Director of MA-NYAD, right? MACUSA's New York Auror Department? Did you lot bollocks something up with them _again,_ because it sure looks like it to me! “

“It is none of your _concern,_ ” the Director gritted. “Lifts. Now. Second _floor!"_

He turned away. For a moment there was a pause then..

“No." A second young voice rang out, crisp and strong. 

“What?’

“I said no,” the owner of the voice said, stepping forward. “That’s spelled N-O, for reference, if you want to put it in your report. Followed up by ‘you’re not the boss of us, any more than you were ever the boss of _them.'_ ” He nodded to the startled Lower American contingent. “We’re here on the Master-Adept’s invitation. Not yours. As _his_ guests. Not yours. As such, we answer to him and to our Headmaster, not you."

“Mr...”

“Diggory. Cedric Diggory. Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft of Wizardry. You can keep your snide comments on that last to yourself,” he added. “If you’re feeling the immediate urge. They’re neither wanted or needed, _or_ for that matter, and at this particular moment, appropriate. “ 

“What he said,” Susan Bones agreed. She stepped forward, turning on her heel to the astonished South American contingent, and to the tall, graceful woman at the front, offering her and her company a deep and elegant bow, fingers tented at chest level. “Madam President. On behalf of the student body of Hogwarts School again, both present and not, may I say that it’s an utter honour to meet you? All of you? And that as we can’t help but notice that all of you seem quite distressed, would it be out of line to offer you our assistance in any way at all?”

“Your…” The tall woman looked quite bemused. “ _Assistance?"_

“Yes.” Her blue eyes were unflinching and fearless. "Our assistance. We might not actually be carrying them on anything but the purely metaphorical level right now, but we, and our wands, I think we’d all agree, are at your disposal. “

 _“Completely_ at your disposal,” Cedric agreed. He stood tall, squared his shoulders, tented his fingers and followed her example in absolute perfect unison with every other member of the contingent of gold and black. “Now... And always.”

There was utter silence.


End file.
